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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38916-8.txt b/38916-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b1a815 --- /dev/null +++ b/38916-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5059 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trial of Oscar Wilde, by Anonymous + +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: The Trial of Oscar Wilde + From the Shorthand Reports + +Author: Anonymous + +Release Date: February 18, 2012 [EBook #38916] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +The Trial of Oscar Wilde + + + + + Issued for Private Circulation Only and + Limited to 50 Copies on Japanese Vellum + and Five Hundred Copies on Handmade Paper + Numbered from One to Five Hundred and Fifty. + + No 184 + + + + + The Trial + of + Oscar Wilde + + FROM THE SHORTHAND REPORTS + + + Then gently scan your brither man, + Still gentler, sister woman, + Though they may gang a' kennin' wrang, + To step aside is human. + ROBT. BURNS. + + + PARIS + PRIVATELY PRINTED + + 1906 + + + + +PREFACE + + +"_It is wrong for us during the greater part of the time to handle these +questions with timidity and false shame, and to surround them with +reticence and mystery. Matters relating to sexual life ought to be studied +without the introduction of moral prepossessions or of preconceived ideas. +False shame is as hateful as frivolity. It is a matter of pressing concern +to rid ourself of the old prejudice that we "sully our pens" by touching +upon facts of this class. It is necessary at all costs to put aside our +moral, esthetic, or religious personality, to regard facts of this nature +merely as natural phenomena, with impartiality and a certain elevation of +mind._" + + + + +PREFACE + + _I blame equally as much those who take it upon themselves to praise + man, as those who make it their business to blame him, together with + others who think that he should be perpetually amused; and only those + can I approve who seek for truth with tear-filled eyes._ + + PASCAL. + + +In "_De Profundis_," that harmonious and last expression of the perfect +artist, Wilde seems, in a single page to have concentrated in guise of +supreme confession, all the pain and passion that stirred and sobbed in +his soul. + +"_This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it, +is of course no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by means of +development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember when I was at +Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round Magdalen's +narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my degree, +that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the +world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my +soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that +I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the +sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and +its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears +even, the broken words that come from lips in pain, remorse that makes one +walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, +the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses +sack-cloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall:--all these +were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to know nothing +of them, I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to +have for a season, indeed no other food at all._" + +Further on, he tells us that his dominant desire was to seek refuge in the +deepest shade of the garden, for his mouth was full of the bitterness of +the dead-sea fruit that he had tasted, adding that this tomb-like aroma +was the befitting and necessary outcome of his preceding life of error. + +We are inclined to think he deceived himself. + +The day wherein he was at last compelled to face the horror of his +tragical destiny his soul was tried beyond endurance. He strode +deliberately, as he himself assures us, towards the gloomiest nook of the +garden, inwardly trembling perhaps, but proud notwithstanding ... hoping +against hope that the sun's rays would seek him out even there ... or in +other words, that he would not cease to live that _Bios theoretikos_, +which he held to be the greatest ideal. + +"_From the high tower of Thought we can look out at the world. Calm, and +self-centred, and complete, the æsthetic critic contemplates life, and no +arrow drawn at a venture can pierce between the joints of his harness._" + +We all know what arrows struck him, arrows that he himself had sharpened, +and that Society had not forgotten to tip with poison. + +"Neither his own heedlessness nor the envious and hypocritical anger of +his enemies, nor the snobbish cruelty of social reprobation were the true +cause of his misfortunes. It was he himself who, after a time of horrible +anguish, consented to his punishment, with a sort of supercilious disdain +for the weakness of human will, and out of a certain regard and unhealthy +curiosity for the sportfulness of fate. Here was a voluptuary seeking for +torture and desiring pain after having wallowed in every sensual +pleasure.... Could such conduct have been due to aught else but sheer +madness?" + +The true debauchee has no such object. He seeks only for pleasure and +discounts beforehand the conditions that Life dictates for the same; the +conditions laid down containing no guarantee that the pleasure will be +actually grasped except only in promise and anticipation. Later, too proud +to acknowledge his cruel disappointment, he will gravely assure us that +the bitterness left in the bottom of the goblet whose wine he has quaffed, +has indeed the sweet taste that he sought after. Certain minds are +satisfied with the fantasmagoria of their intelligence, whereas the +voluptuary finds happiness only in the pleasure of realisation. In his +heart he concocts for himself a prodigious mixture of sorrow and of joy, +of suffering and of ecstacy, but the great world, wotting naught of this +secret alchemy and judging only according to the facts which lie upon the +surface, slices down to the same level, with the same stupid knife, the +strange, beautiful flower, as well as the evil weed that grew apace. + +Remy de Gourmont said of the famous author, Paul Adam, that he was "a +magnificent spectacle." Wilde may be pronounced a painful problem. He +seems to escape literary criticism in order to fall under the keen +scalping knife of the analytical moralist, by the paradoxical fact of his +apparently imperious purpose to hew out and fashion forth his life as a +work of art. + +"Save here and there, in _Intentions_ and in his poems, the _Poem of +Reading Gaol_, nothing of his soul has he thrown into his books; he seemed +to desire, one can almost postulate as a certainty, the stupendous tragedy +that blasted his life. From the abyss where his flesh groaned in misery, +his conscience hovered above him contemplating his woeful state whilst he +thus became the spectator of his own death-throes."[1] + +That is the reason why he stirs us so deeply. + +Those who might be tempted to search in his work for an echo however +feeble, of a new message to mankind, will be grievously disappointed. The +technical cleverness of Wilde is undeniable, but the magnificent dress in +which he has clothed it appears to us to have been borrowed. He has +brought us neither remedy nor poison; he leads us nowhere, but at the same +time we are conscious that he has been everywhere. No companion of ours is +he, but all the companions we hold dear he has known. True he sat at the +feet of the wise men of Greece in the Gardens of Academus, but the +eurythmy of their gests fascinated him more than the soberness of their +doctrines. Dante he followed in all his subterranean travels and +peregrinations, but all that he has to relate to us after his frightful +journeyings is merely an ecstatic description of the highly-wrought +scenery that he had witnessed. + +"I packed all my genius, said he, into my life, I have put only my talent +into my works." Unfaithful to the principle which he learnedly deduced in +_Intentions_, viz: that the undivided soul of a writer should incorporate +itself in his work, even as Shakespeare pushing aside the "_impulses that +stirred so strongly within him that he had, as it were perforce, to suffer +them to realize their energy, not on the lower plane of actual life, where +they would have been trammelled and constrained and so made imperfect, but +on that of the imaginative plane of art_," ... he came to confound the +intensity of feeling with the calmness of beauty. Possessed of a mind of +rare culture, he nevertheless only evoked, when he touched Art, harmonious +vibrations perhaps, but vibrations which others, after all said and done, +had already created before him. He succeeded in producing nothing more +than a splendid and incomparable echo. The most that can be said is that +the music he had in his soul he kept there, living all the time a crowded, +ostentatious life, and distinguishing himself as a superlative +conversationalist. Be this as it may, posterity cannot judge us according +to those possibilities of our nature which were never developed. However +numerous may be the testimonies in our favour, she cannot pronounce +excepting on the works, or at least, the materials left by the workman. It +is this which renders so precarious the actor's fleeting glory, as it +likewise dissipates the golden halo that hovers over the brilliant Society +_causeur_. Nothing remains of Mallarmé excepting a few cunningly wrought +verses, inferior to the clearer and more profound poems of his great +master, Baudelaire. Of Wilde nothing will remain beyond his written works +which are vastly inferior to his brilliant epigrammatic conversation. + +In our days, the master of repartee and the after-dinner speaker is +fore-doomed to forgetfulness, for he always stands alone, and to gain +applause has to talk down to and flatter lower-class audiences. No writer +of blood-curdling melodramas, no weaver of newspaper novels is obliged to +lower his talent so much as the professional wit. If the genius of +Mallarmé was obscured by the flatterers that surrounded him, how much more +was Wilde's talent overclouded by the would-be witty, shoddy-elegant, and +cheaply-poetical society hangers-on, who covered him with incense? One of +his devoted literary courtezans, who has written a life of Wilde, which +is nothing more than a rhapsodidal panegyric of his intimacy with the +poet, tells us that the first attempts of the sparkling conversationalist +were not at all successful in Paris drawing-rooms. In the house of Victor +Hugo seeing he had to let the veteran sleep out his nap whilst others +among the guests slumbered also, he made up his mind to astonish them. He +succeeded, but at what a cost! Although he was a verse writer, most +sincerely devoted to poetry and art, and one of the most emotional and +sensitive and tender-hearted amongst modern wielders of the pen he +succeeded only in gaining a reputation for artificiality. + +We all know his studied paradoxes, his five or six continually repeated +tales, but we are tempted to forget the charming dreamer who was full of +tenderness for everything in nature. + +"It is true that Mallarmé has not written much, but all he has done is +valuable. Some of his verses are most beautiful whilst Wilde seemed never +to finish anything. The works of the English aesthete are very +interesting, because they characterize his epoch; his pages are useful +from a documentary point of view, but are not extraordinary from a +literary standpoint. In the _Duchess of Padua_, he imitates Hugo and +Sardou; the _Picture of Dorian Grey_ was inspired by Huysmans; +_Intentions_ is a _vade-mecum_ of symbolism, and all the ideas contained +therein are to be found in Mallarmé and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. As for +Wilde's poetry, it closely follows the lines laid down by Swinburne. His +most original composition is _Poems in Prose_. They give a correct idea of +his home-chat, but not when he was at his best; that no doubt, is because +the art of talking must always be inferior to any form of literary +composition. Thoughts properly set forth in print after due correction +must always be more charming than a finely sketched idea hurriedly +enunciated when conversing with a few disciples. In ordinary table-talk we +meet nothing more than ghosts of new-born ideas fore-doomed to perish. The +jokes of a wit seldom survive the speaker. When we quote the epigrams of +Wilde, it is as if we were exhibiting in a glass case, a collection of +beautiful butterflies, whose wings have lost the brilliancy of their once +gaudy colours. Lively talk pleases, because of the man who utters it, and +we are impressed also by the gestures which accompany his frothy +discourse. What remains of the sprightly quips and anecdotes of such +celebrated _hommes d'esprit_, as Scholl, Becque, Barbey d'Aurevilly! Some +stories of the XVIIIth. century have been transmitted to us by Chamfort, +but only because he carefully remodelled them by the aid of his clever +pen."[2] + +These opinions of Rebell questionable though they may be, show us plainly +something of the charm and the weakness of Wilde. + +A perfect artist desiring to leave his mark on the temple-columns of Fame +must not live among his fellow men ambitious to taste the bitterness and +the sweetness alike of every caress of existence, but submit himself +pitilessly to the thraldom of the writing desk. Some authors may produce +masterpieces amidst the busy throng; but there are others who lose all +power of creation unless they shut themselves up for a time and live +severely by rote. When Wilde was dragging out a wretched life in the +sordid room of a cheap, furnished hotel, where he eventually died, did he +ever remember while reading Balzac by the flickering light of his one +candle that the great master of French literature often sought solitude +and wrestled for eighteen hours at a stretch with the demon of severe +toil? Did he ever repeat the doleful wail of the Author of _La Comédie +Humaine_ who was sometimes heard to exclaim in sad tones: "_I ought not +to have done that.... I ought to have put black on white, black on +white...._" + +Few experiments are really necessary for the literary creator who seeks to +analyse the stuff of which Life is composed in order to dissolve for us +all its elements and demonstrate its ever-present underlying essence. The +romance writer must stand away from the crowd, if only for a time, and +reflect deeply upon what he has seen and heard. The power of thought, to +be free and fruitful, cannot flourish without the strength of ascetism. We +must yield to that law which decrees that action may not be the +twin-sister of dreams. Those who live a life of pleasure can only give us +colourless falsehoods when they try to depict sincerity of feeling. The +confessions of sensualists resemble volcanic ashes. + +Wilde himself gives us the key to his errors and his weakness: + +"_Human life is the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there is +nothing else of any value. It is true that as one watches life in its +curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one cannot wear over one's face a +mask of glass nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and +making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshappen +dreams. There are poisons so subtle that to know their properties one has +to sicken of them. There are maladies so strange that one has to pass +through them if one seeks to understand their nature. And yet what a great +reward one receives! How wonderful the whole world becomes to one! To note +the curious, hard logic of passion and the emotional, coloured life of the +intellect--to observe where they meet, and where they separate, at what +point they are in unison and at what point they are in discord--there is a +delight in that! What matter what the cost is? One can never pay too high +a price for any sensation._"[3] + +The brain becomes dulled at this sport, which it would be illusory to call +a study. He who uses his intellect to serve only his sensuality can +produce nothing elaborate but what is artificial. Such is the dilemma of +Wilde, whose collections of writings is like a painted stage-scene, mere +garish canvas, behind which there is never anything substantial. + +"When I first saw Wilde, he had not yet been seared by the brand of +general reprobation. Often I changed my opinion of him, but at first I +felt the enthusiasm which young literary aspirants always feel for those +who have made their mark; then the law-suit took place, followed by the +dramatic thunderclap of a criminal prosecution; and my soul revolted as +if some great iniquity had been consummated. Later on, it seemed to me +that the man of fashion had swallowed up the literary god, his baggage +seemed light, and his brilliant butterfly-life had perhaps been of more +importance to him than the small pile of volumes bearing his name. + +"To-day, I seem clearly to understand what sort of a man he +was--extraordinary beyond a doubt; but never has artificial sentiment been +so cunningly mingled with seemingly natural simplicity and pulsating +pleasure in one and the same man."[4] + +"_I must say to myself that I ruined myself and that nobody great or small +can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am +trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This +pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was +what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible +still._ + +_I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my +age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and +had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position +in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually +discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long +after both the man and his age have passed away. With me it was different. +I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, +but his relations were the passion of his age and its weariness of +passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital +issue, of larger scope._ + +_The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into +long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a_ +flâneur, _a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller +natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, +and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the +heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new +sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity +became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, +or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took +pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little +action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore +what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on +the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain +of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I +ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute +humility._"[5] + +This confession of irreparable defeat while being exceedingly dolorous, is +unfortunately, rendered still further painful by other pages which +contradict it, and almost tempt us to doubt its sincerity, in spite of the +fact that Wilde was always sincere for those who knew how to read between +the lines and enter into his spirit. + +"There is no doubt that he was truly a most extraordinary man, endowed +with striking originality, but a man who at the same time took more than +uncommon care to hide his gifts under a cloak bought in some conventional +bazaar which made a point of keeping abreast with the fashions of the +day."[6] + +What brought about his downfall was the mad idea that possessed him of the +possibility of employing in the service of noble aspirations all, without +exception, all the passions that moved and agitated his human soul. +Everyone of us is, no doubt, peopled at times with mysterious spirits, +ephemeral apparitions, which like the wild beasts that Christ long ago +cast out of the Gadarene swine, tear themselves to pieces in internecine +warfare. It is with such soldiers as these, who very seldom obey the +superior orders of the higher intellect, or desert and rebel against us at +the opportune moment, that we are called upon to withstand the onslaught +of a thousand enemies. Wilde made the grand mistake of trying to +understand them all. He believed that they were capable of adapting +themselves to that powerful instinct which animated him, and which +directed him, wherever he wandered or wherever he went, towards the spirit +of Beauty. This error lasted long enough perhaps to convince him of the +power that was born in him, but unfortunately, the revelation of his error +came too late. + +My object in this preface is not to write the life of Wilde. + +I have only to do with the Writer, for the Man is yet too much alive and +his wounds have scarcely ceased bleeding! In the presence of still living +sorrow, crimson-tinged, respect commands us to stand bareheaded; before +the scarred face of woe the voice is dumb; we should, above all, endeavour +rather to ignore the accidents that thrust themselves into a life and try +to discover the great, calm soul, beautiful in its melancholy, which +though pained and suffering, has never ceased to be nobly inspired. To +prove that this was true in the case of Wilde, we may have recourse to +some of those who knew him well and who form a great "cloud of witnesses," +testifying to the veracity of the things we have laid down. + +Mr. Arthur Symons, a keen and large-minded critic, a friend of Wilde's, +and an elegant and forcible writer to boot, in his recent volume: +"_Studies in Prose and Verse_," characterizes Wilde as a "poet of +attitudes," and we cannot do better than quote a few lines from the fine +article which he consecrated to our author: + +"_When the "Ballad of Reading Gaol" was published, he said, it seemed to +some people that such a return to, or so startling a first acquaintance +with, real things, was precisely what was most required to bring into +relation, both with life and art an extraordinary talent so little in +relation with matters of common experience, so fantastically alone in a +region of intellectual abstractions. In this poem, where a style formed on +other lines seems startled at finding itself used for such new purposes, +we see a great spectacular intellect, to which, at last, pity and terror +have come in their own person, and no longer as puppets in a play. In its +sight, human life has always been something acted on the stage; a comedy +in which it is the wise man's part to sit aside and laugh, but in which he +may also disdainfully take part, as in a carnival, under any mask. The +unbiassed, scornful intellect, to which humanity has never been a burden, +comes now to be unable to sit aside and laugh, and it has worn and looked +behind so many masks that there is nothing left desirable in illusion. +Having seen, as the artist sees, further than morality, but with so +partial an eyesight as to have overlooked it on the way, it has come at +length to discover morality in the only way left possible, for itself. +And, like most of those who, having "thought themselves weary," have made +the adventure of putting thought into action, it has had to discover it +sorrowfully, at its own incalculable expense. And now, having become so +newly acquainted with what is pitiful, and what seems most unjust, in the +arrangement of human affairs, it has gone, not unnaturally, to an extreme, +and taken, on the one hand, humanitarianism, on the other realism, at more +than their just valuation, in matters of art. It is that odd instinct of +the intellect, the necessity of carrying things to their furthest point of +development, to be more logical than either life or art, two very wayward +and illogical things, in which conclusions do not always follow from +premises._ + +_His intellect was dramatic, and the whole man was not so much a +personality as an attitude...._ + +_And it was precisely in his attitudes that he was most sincere. They +represented his intentions; they stood for the better, unrealised part of +himself. Thus his attitude, towards life and towards art, was untouched by +his conduct; his perfectly just and essentially dignified assertion of the +artist's place in the world of thought and the place of beauty in the +material world being in nowise invalidated by his own failure to create +pure beauty or to become a quite honest artist. A talent so vividly at +work as to be almost genius was incessantly urging him into action, mental +action._ + +_Realising as he did, that it is possible to be very watchfully cognisant +of that "quality of our moments as they pass," and so shape them after +one's own ideal much more continuously and consciously than most people +have ever thought of trying to do, he made for himself many souls, souls +of intricate pattern and elaborate colour, webbed into infinite tiny +cells, each the home of a strange perfume, perhaps a poison. "Every soul +had its own secret, and was secluded from the soul which had gone before +it or was to come after it. And this showman of souls was not always aware +that he was juggling with real things, for to him they were no more than +the coloured glass balls which the juggler keeps in the air, catching them +one after another. For the most part the souls were content to be +playthings; now and again they took a malicious revenge, and became so +real that even the juggler was aware of it. But when they became too real +he had to go on throwing them into the air and catching them, even though +the skill of the game had lost its interest for him. But as he never lost +his self-possession, his audience, the world, did not see the +difference._"[7] + +Thus not wishing to live for himself, Wilde was surprised into living +mainly for others, and his ever-present desire to astonish was one of the +prime causes that led to his overthrow. Yet, in spite of this, what riches +of the mind, one easily divines him to possess, if for a moment we peer +beyond the mobile curtain of his paradoxes. Those who listened to him, +this modern St. Chrysostom, on whose lips there was ever an ambiguous +smile, could not fail to see that he spoke to himself, was occupied in +translating that which was passing in his mind, trying in a sense, to +ravish his auditors and plunge them even into greater, though only +ephemeral, ravishment, whilst ushering them into an absolutely unreal and +immaterial kingdom of capricious fantasy, and they will remember that he +was sometimes astonishingly profound and grave, and always charming, +paradoxical, and eloquent. His mind constantly dwelt upon the questions of +Art and Aesthetics. In _Intentions_ he laid down serious problems, which +in themselves bore every appearance of contradiction, and which any +attempt to resolve would, at the outset, appear puerile and ambitious. + +For instance:--Is lying a fundamental principle of Art, that is to say, of +every art? + +Is it possible for there to be perfect concordance between a finely +ordered and pure life, and the worship of Beauty; or, are we to consider +such a consummation as utterly impossible and chimerical? + +Must there be a permanent and necessary divorce between Ethics and +Aesthetics? + +Ought we, beneath the flowery mask of a borrowed smile, allow ourselves to +be carried away by all the waves of instinct? + +The art of Criticism, is it superior to Art? The Interpreter can he be +superior to the creator? Must we modify the profound axiom, "to understand +is to equal," not by reducing it to that other axiom, more profound +perhaps, "to understand is to achieve," but by modifying it with that, +which, at the first glance looks at least passingly strange "to understand +is to surpass?" + +Such are the questions which Wilde postulated in _Intentions_ and worked +out with great audacity, but with no higher object than to win admiration, +and all this with the indifferent suppleness of a conjuror of words. + +_Intentions_ is a study of artificial genius, culture, and instinct, and, +for this reason, it forms a most curious production. In itself it can +hardly be termed a magistral work, inasmuch as all the theories enunciated +in it are, at least, twenty years old, and appear to us to-day quite worn +out and decrepit. As much may be said, also, for the theories put forward +by our young, contemporaneous artists who undertake to discuss all things +in Heaven and Earth, and whose vapourings on Life, Nature, Social Art and +other things--especially other things--are no more guaranteed against +mortality than the doctrines above specified. Let them remember, in +reading Wilde's work, that their Aesthetical doctrines will soon become as +antiquated, and that it is no bid for lasting fame to write flashy novels, +pretty verses, high-flown or realistic dramas, pessimistic or optimistic +plays, imbued with Schopenhaurian and Nitzschien principles, since the +crying need of the time is for sincere work. All the doctrines ever +invented are mere tittle-tattle, only fit to amuse brainless ladies +wanting in beauty, or minds stricken with positive sterility. + +It is not inexact that in _Intentions_ one meets with a profound truth +now and again, but the dressing of it is so paradoxical that we run a risk +of misinterpreting all that may animate it of genuine fitness and +sincerity. + +Wilde may truly be denominated the last representative of that English art +of the XIXth. century, which beginning with Shelley, continuing with the +Pre-Raphaelites and culminating with the American painter, Whistler, +endeavours purposely to set forth an ideal and elegant expression of the +world. + +The mistake of these men lies in the belief that Art was made for Life; +whereas it is, as a matter of fact, quite the contrary. Life has no other +value, except as subject-matter, for poet and painter. These are excentric +theories, certainly, but then, what on earth, does it matter about +theories? Do not they serve the great artist to make his genius more +puissant, and enable him to concentrate all his forces in the same +direction by uniting instead of scattering them? With, or in spite of his +theories, Shelley wrote his poems and Whistler painted his pictures; if +their æsthetic basis was bad, one, at least, cannot pretend that it was +dangerous, since it enabled them to accomplish their masterpieces. Wilde, +unfortunately, was an æsthete before he was a poet, and produced his works +somewhat in the spirit of bravado. He had been told that he could not +create aught of good: the reply, triumphant and crushing was, the _Picture +of Dorian Grey_. He is a literary problem; and in considering him, we are +struck with the unwarranted corruption, by his acquaintances, of a fine +artistic sensibility. + +The fashionable drawing-rooms of the West-End brought about his downfall, +or rather, and it amounts to the same thing: his frank and undisguised +desire to please and to dazzle them proved his undoing. Possibly the same +misfortune would have overtaken Merimée, had it not been for his lofty and +vigorous intelligence; as it was, he lost more than once, most precious +time in composing "_Chambres bleues_," when he was undoubtedly capable of +producing another "_Colomba_," and other variations of "_Vases +étrusques_." + +With all this, let us be thoroughly just; _Intentions_ is far from +containing anything but mere paradoxes. Those that we find there are at +any rate of very diverse kinds. Some are pure verbal amusements, and may +be thrust aside after the moment's attention that they snatched from our +surprise. Others belong to a nobler family of ideas and awaken in us the +lasting and fecund astonishment of the paradox which is born sound and +healthy, because it concerns a new truth. Into the mental landscape, +these paradoxes introduce that sudden change of perspective, which forces +the mind to rise or to descend, and thus causes us to discover other +horizons. What a grievous error would it be on our part not to feel +something of that immense and exhaustive love of beauty which haunted the +soul of Wilde until the bitter end? However artificial his work may appear +at the first glance, there is still sufficient left of the man which was +incomparable. We instinctively feel that he belonged to the chosen race of +those upon whom the "spirit of the hour" had laid his magic wand, and who +give forth at the cunning touch of the Magician some of the finest notes +of which our stunted human nature is capable. Men thus endowed, enjoy the +rare privilege of being unable to proffer a single word, without our +perceiving however confusedly, the splendid harmony of an almost universal +accompaniment of ideas. The choir, their eyes fixed upon the eyes of the +master-musician, follows his inspired gestures with jealous care, and +seeks to interpret his every nod and movement. + +None but an artist could have written the admirable pages on Shakespeare, +Greek Art, and other elevated themes that are to be found in the works of +Oscar Wilde. + +More than an artist was he, who noted down the suggestive thought: that +the humility of the matter of a work of art is an element of culture. If +therefore, we hear him exclaim that "thought is a sickness," we must bear +in mind that this is simply an analysis of the phrase: "_We live in a +period whose reading is too vast to allow it to become wise, and which +thinks too much to be beautiful._" + +Our eyes can no longer penetrate the esoteric meaning of the statues of +the olden times, beautiful with glorified animality, and which have alas, +become for us little more than the tongue-tied offspring of the inspiring +god Pan, dead beyond all hope of rebirth. Our brains have become stupified +through the heaviness of the flesh, and this, perhaps, because we have +treated the flesh as a slave. + +"_The worship of the senses, wrote Wilde, has often, and with much +justice, been decried; men feeling a natural instinct of terror about +passions and sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they +are conscious of sharing with the less highly-organised forms of +existence. But it is probable the true nature of the senses has never been +understood, and that they have remained savage and animal merely because +the world has sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by +pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of +which a fine instinct for beauty will be the dominant characteristic._"[8] + +In these lines, we may perhaps find the key of a certain metamorphosis in +the poet's life, before Circe, that terrible sorceress, had passed his +way. + + "_Who knows not Circe, + The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup + Whoever tasted lost his upright shape, + And downward fell into a grovelling swine?_" + (_Milton: Comus, 50-53._) + +The infant King of Rome, we are told, looking out from a window of the +Louvre one day, at the muddy street where young children were +playing,--sad in the midst of a perfumed and divinely flattering +court,--cried out: "I too, would like to roll myself in that beautiful +mud." We are inclined to think from a sentimental outlook, that Wilde also +had the same morbid desire; but, he was worth better things; and there +were times in his life when serene aspirations moved his heart before he +sat down to the festive board of Sin. + +He had a pronounced tendency towards the _discipulat_; used to question +youths about their studies and their mind, showing as much interest in +them as a spiritual confessor, inebriating himself with their enthusiasm, +and surrounding himself more and more with a medley of different friends. +A vigorous pagan, ardent, intoxicated with souvenirs of Antiquity, +heart-sick of his worldly successes, he dreamed perhaps of living over +again: + + _Ces héröiques jours où les jeunes pensées + Allaient chercher leur miel aux lèvres d'un Platon._ + +But this _artificiel de l'art_ was, although he wotted it not, a man who +rioted in the good things of life. He sought to inculcate in himself a +quiet spirit which believes itself invulnerable. + +"_And when we reach the true culture that is our aim, we attain to that +perfection of which the saints have dreamed, the perfection of those to +whom sin is impossible, not because they make the renunciations of the +ascetic, but because they can do everything they wish without hurt to the +soul, and can wish for nothing that can do the soul harm, the soul being +an entity so divine that it is able to transform into elements of a richer +experience, or a finer susceptibility, or a newer mode of thoughts, acts +or passions that with the common would be commonplace, or with the +uneducated ignoble, or with the shameful vile._"[9] + +This passage shows us a state of things very far removed from the old +dream of antiquity. + +He forgot, alas! the puritanism and sublime discourses of Diotime, which +have been so finely pictured for us by Plato, to wallow in the orgies of +the Island of Capria. + +Before that Criminal Court, where he vainly struggled so as "not to appear +naked before men," we hear him proclaim what he had himself desired and +perhaps attained. + +What interpretation, asked the judge, can you give us of the verse: + + _I am the Love which dares not tell its name_ + +"The Love referred to," replied Wilde, "is that which exists between a man +of mature years and a young man; the love of David and of Jonathan. It is +the same love that Plato made the basis of his philosophy; it is that love +which is sung in the Sonnets of Shakespeare and of Michael-Angelo; it is a +profound spiritual affection, as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, +pure and noble; it is intellectual, the love of a man possessing full +experience of life, and of a young man full of all the joy and all the +hope of the future." + +There in that struggle in the midst of thick darkness, this must have +been the cry of his tormented soul, a breath of pure air as he passed, a +perfumed memory ... then there came a few arrow flights badly winged which +only wounded his own heart. + +He defended himself in an indifferent way according to some people, +although it must be admitted that he gave the answers that were necessary +and becoming, and, in some cases, compelled his judges, who were no better +than the mouth-pieces of the crowd, to confess the hatred that the worship +of beauty had inspired. + +"However strange may have been his attitude, that attitude could not have +been indifferent to anyone. Those who have been fortunate enough to laugh +at the portrait that René Boylesve has drawn of the æsthete in his fine +novel "Le Parfum des Iles Borromées," would find it difficult to make a +mock of the man who accepted with superb disinterestedness, the torture +that he knew beforehand the judges would inevitably inflict upon him. + +Although he may not have been a great poet, although the pretext of his +equivocal mode of living was taken to condemn him, we cannot lose sight of +the art and of the literary craftsman that were condemned at the same time +with him."[10] + +_We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its +periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family +quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for +a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes +outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be +violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that +the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly +some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose +offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory +sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a +profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, +and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose +vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is +supposed, sufficiently chastised._[11] + +This bitter denunciation of English mock-modesty by the brilliant Essayist +rests upon thoroughly justifiable grounds. Once again in the dolorous +history of humanity, the grotesque farce was enacted of chasing forth the +scapegoat into the wilderness to bear away the sins of the people. But, in +this instance, the unhappy creature was not only laden with the sins of +the tribe; a heavier burden still had been added to all the others: the +fearful burden of the mad, unreasoned hatred of the sinners. Indeed he, +whose share in the general load of sin was the greatest, sought to add +more hatred than all the others to the great fardel under which the victim +staggered, and believing himself so much the more innocent that the +abjection of the unfortunate wretch was complete, would have been glad had +it been in his power to help even the public hangman in the execution of +his nefarious task. We have observed that through some diabolical strain +in human nature, the evil joy which creates scandal and gives rise to a +man's downfall, increases in intensity if the victim happens to be a man +of superior rank and talent. + + _On voit briller au fond des prunelles haineuses, + L'orgueil mystérieux de souiller la Beauté._ + +How great must have been the delighted intoxication of numberless weak +minds when they were impelled, in the midst of a silence that braver and +clearer spirits dared not break, to screech out vociferations against Art +and Thought, denouncing these as the accomplices of the momentary +aberrations of him who erstwhile worshipped at their shrine. Here in +France at least, men knew better how to restrain themselves, and there +were even a few courageous wielders of talented pens who did not hesitate +to use their abilities in favour of their Anglo-Saxon colleague. Hugues +Rebell published in the _Mercure de France_ that _Défense d'Oscar Wilde_, +the calm and tempered logic of which is still fresh to many minds. A +number of writers and artists even held a meeting of protestation; but, of +course, all this had not the slightest effect on the judicial position of +Wilde. It was generally felt that the ferocious outcry raised against the +unhappy man "who had been found out" was because that man was a poet, and +not so much because he had gone counter to the manners of his time. +Amongst all the mingled shouting and laughter, the arguments for and the +arguments against, the voice of one man was heard stentorian and clear +above all the rest, that voice belonged to Octave Mirbeau, a puissant +master of the French tongue, and a brilliant writer and dramatist. The +following lines of suppressed anger and large-minded charity emanated from +his pen: + +"_A great deal has been heard about the paradoxes of Oscar Wilde upon Art, +Beauty, Conscience and Life! Paradoxes they were, it is true, and we know +that some laid themselves open to the charge of exaggeration, and vaulted +over the threshold of the Forbidden. But after all, what is a paradox if +not, for the most part of the time, the exaltation of an idea in a +striking and superior form? As soon as an idea overleaps the low-level of +ordinary popular understanding, having ceased to drag behind it the +ignoble stumps gathered in the swamps of middle-class morality, and seeks +with strong, steadfast wing, to attain the lofty heights of Philosophy, +Literature or Art, we at once stigmatize it as a paradox, because, unable +ourselves to follow it into those regions which are inaccessible to us, +through the weakness of our organs, and we make haste to scotch it and put +it under ban by flinging after it curse-laden cries of blame and +contempt._ + +_And yet, strange as it may seem, progress cannot be made save by way of +paradox, whilst much vaunted common sense--the prized virtue of the +imbecile--perpetuates the humdrum routine of daily life. The truth is, we +refuse to allow anyone to come and outrage our intellectual sluggishness, +or our morality, ready-made like second-hand clothes in a dealer's shop, +or the stupid security of our sheepish preconceptions._ + +_Looked at squarely, that was the veritable crime in the minds of those +who sat in judgment on Oscar Wilde._ + +_They could not forgive him for being a thinker, and a man of superior +intellect--and for that self-same reason eminently dangerous to other men. +Wilde is young and has a future before him, and he has proved by the +strong and charming works which he has already given us that he can still +do much more in the cause of Beauty and Art. Must we not then admit that +it is an abominable thing to risk the killing of something far above all +laws, and all morality: the spirit of beauty, for the sake of repressing +acts which are not really punishable_ per se. + +_For laws change and morality becomes transformed with the transformations +of time, with the changeing of latitude and longitude, but beauty remains +immaculate, and sheds her light far over the centuries that she alone can +rescue from obscurity._" + +With these magnificent words of one of the great masters of French prose, +we would gladly terminate the present study; but it remains for us to cite +the following from the pen of our lately deceased friend, Hugues Rebell, +who possessed not only acumen and erudition, but employed a brilliant +style and ready wit in the expression of his thoughts: + +"Will a day ever come, wrote he, when the deeds of men will be no more +judged in the name of religion and morality, but from the point of view of +their social importance? When the misdemeanours of a man of wit and of +genius, or a clever, elegant man of fashion, shall no longer be judged by +the same law as that which condemns a stolid navvy or a dockyard hand? Far +from believing in our much belauded progress, I am inclined alas, to think +that we are really far behind our forefathers in tolerance, and above all +in the ideas that govern our idea of social equality. The downfall of the +sentiment of hierarchy seriously compromises the existence of some of the +best men amongst us. It is not crime merely which is tracked and hounded +down, but all that strays aside for a moment from every-day habits and +customs. So-and-so, because he is not like other people inspires aversion, +even horror on the part of those who take off their hats most respectfully +to the successful swindler; and whilst the Police complacently allow the +perpetration in our great cities of robberies and murders, they make a +raid on the unfortunate bookseller who happens to have stowed away +carefully in his back-shop, a few illustrations where the high deeds and +gestures of Venus are too faithfully reproduced. These paltry persecutions +would only serve to bring a smile to our lips were it not that everyone is +more or less exposed to their arbitrary measures. Men are far less free +to-day than they formerly were, because they are too much dominated by a +large number of ignorant and groundless prejudices. Ferocious gaolers +fetter and imprison their minds for their greater overthrow; no longer do +they believe in God, whilst giving implicit faith to vain Science which, +making small account of the great diversity of character and temperament +amongst human beings, holds up for unique example, a healthy and virtuous +individual who never had any real existence except in the imagination of +fools; and whilst no longer following any of the old religions, they +submit themselves with equanimity to the condemnation of so-called Human +Justice, which more often than not is radically venal, and impresses them +far more than did in olden times, the ex-communicating _bulls_ of Popes +who had usurped the authority of God." + +As for the sentence of hard labour passed upon Wilde, a description would +fail to convey to the inexperienced reader a full idea of its barbarous +severity. Sir Edward Clarke, the counsel for the defense, gave +substantially the following reply to the representative of a Paris +newspaper: + +"My opinion is that Oscar Wilde will work out his sentence. He has +received the heaviest punishment that it was possible to inflict upon him. +You cannot possibly form any notion of the extreme severity of "hard +labour" which is implacable in its _régime_ of absorbing and exigent +regularity. + +"Oscar Wilde, who wore his hair long like the esthete he was, was obliged +to undergo the indignity of having it cut close, and wearing the +sack-cloth suit bearing the broad-arrow mark of the convict. Thrust into a +small narrow cell with only a bed, or rather a wooden plank in guise of a +bed, for all his furniture,--a bed without a matress, and with a bolster +made of wood, this talented man was made to pass the long weary months of +his martyrdom. + +"The "labour" given him to do was absolutely ridiculous for a man of his +bent; first of all for a certain number of hours, he had to sit on a stool +in his cell and disentangle and reduce to small quantities ship-rope of +enormous size used for docking ocean liners, the only instruments allowed +him to effect the work being a nail and his own fingers. The result of +this painful and atrocious penitence was to tear and disfigure his hands +beyond all hope. + +"After that he was conducted into a court where he had to displace a +certain number of cannon-balls, carrying them from one place to another +and arranging them in symmetrical piles. No sooner was this edifying +labour terminated, than he had himself to undo it all and carry back the +cannon-balls one by one to the place from whence he had first taken them. + +"Then finally, he was made to work the tread-mill which is a harder task +than those even that we have endeavoured faintly to describe. Imagine if +you can, an enormous wheel in the interior of which exist cunningly +arranged winding steps. Wilde, mounting on one of the steps, would +immediately set the wheel in motion by the movement of his feet; then the +steps follow each other under the feet in rapid and regular evolution, +thus forcing the legs to a precipitous action which becomes laborious, +enervating, and even maddening after a few minutes. But this enervating +fatigue and suffering the convict is obliged to overcome, whilst +continuing to move his legs for all they are worth, if he would escape +being knocked down, caught up and thrown over, by the revolving movement +of the wheel. This fantastical exercise lasts a quarter of an hour, and +the wretch obliged to indulge in it, is allowed five minutes rest before +the silly game recommences. + +"The convict is always kept apart and not allowed to speak even to his +gaoler except at certain moments. All correspondence and reading is +forbidden, save for the Bible and Prayer book placed at the head of the +wooden plank, which serves him for a bed; and relatives are not admitted +to see him excepting at the end of the year. + +"His food consists of meat and black bread, and of course only water is +allowed. The meal-times take place at fixed hours, for naturally he has to +follow a regular _régime_, in order to accomplish the hard labours that +are incumbent upon him. + +"Many of the convicts have been known to say, on coming out of prison, +that they would have far more preferred to pass ten years in penal +servitude than work out two years of hard labour. The moral suffering men +like Oscar Wilde are forced to undergo is probably superior even to their +physical distress, and I can only repeat that this labour is the severest +which the laws of England impose." + + * * * * * + +Wilde endured this martyrdom to the bitter end, the only favour allowed +him being permission, towards the end of the time, to read a few books and +to write. He read Dante in his entirety, dwelling longer over the poet's +description of Hell than anything else, because here he recognized himself +"at home." + +Before the doors of the gaol had been bolted on him, he wrote with a pen +that had been dipped in colourless ink, letters of tears, sobs and pains, +which were issued to the world only after the unhappy man had winged his +flight for another planet. Those letters bear every mark of the deepest +sincerity. They are not so much literature as the wail of a broken heart, +which had attached itself to the only human affection he believed was +still faithful to him. It is impossible to treat lightly the passionate +anguish which refrains from expressing itself with the same intensity as +the sorrows it had suffered, stricken with infinite sadness at the utter +shipwreck of all hope and the cowardice of the human nature that had +brought him to such low estate. + +That he should have conjured up the happy times he had seen decked out in +all the charming graces of youth, and which smiled back his visage from +the limpid mirror of his marvellously artistic intelligence, is only +perfectly natural; and this evocation of happier times took on a new and +horribly strange beauty, just as the feeblest ray of light stealing +through prison walls gains in puissance from the sheer opacity of +enveloping darkness. + +I will not stop here to enquire whether he found later the consolation he +so much desired, a haven of peace in the friendship of the aristocratic +adolescent, who had unwittingly caused him to become cast-a-way. It is +highly probable that the bitter words which André Gide heard him utter, +referred to that unfortunate intimacy: "No, he does not understand me; he +can no longer understand me. I repeat to him in each letter; we can no +more follow together the same path; you have yours, and it is certainly +beautiful; and I have mine. His path is the path of Alcibiade, whilst mine +henceforth must be that of St. Francis of Assisi." + +His last most important work in prose: _De Profundis_, which reveals him +to us under an entirely different aspect, although, practically always the +same man, shows that he is still engrossed with the perpetual love of +attitudinizing, dreaming perhaps, that in spite of his sorrow and +repentance, he will be able to take up again and sing, although in an +humbler tone, the pagan hymn that had been strangled in his throat. In +this connection, we cannot help thinking of the gesture of the great +Talma, who whilst he lay a-dying, although he knew it not, took the +pendant skin of his thin neck, between his fingers, and said to those who +stood around: "Here is something which would suit finely to make up a +visage for an old Tiberius." + +It seems to us that the chief characteristic of Wilde's book is not so +much its admirable accent as its subtle irony, through which there seems +to thrill the reply of Destiny to the haughty resolutions that he had +undertaken. It is as though Death itself rose up from each page to sneer +and chuckle at the master-singer; and few things are more bitter on the +part of this poet--who had with his own hands ensepulchred himself as a +willing holocaust to the deceitful gods of factitious Art,--than the +constant appeals that he makes to Nature. The song no longer rings with +the old regal note; there is none of the trepidating joy of a Whitman, or +the yielding sweetness of an Emerson; our ear detects only the melopoeia +of a heart which had been wounded in its innermost recess. + +"_I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving +prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, +and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold +of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes so that +all the air shall be Arabia for me._"[12] + +These are the words of a convalescent; of a man newly risen from a bed of +sickness anticipating a richer and fuller life, unknowing that the +uplifted hand of Death suspended just above him, was destined to strike +him down at brief delay. + +In the darkness of his prison cell, he dreams of the mysterious herbs that +he will find in the realms of Nature; of the balms that he shall ferret +out amongst the plants of the earth, and which will bring peace for his +anguish, and deep-seated joy for the suffering that racked his brain. + +"_But Nature, whose sweet rains fall on the unjust and just alike, will +have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose +silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that +I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind +over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse +me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole._"[13] + +In presence of this beautiful passage, it is painful to remember how his +hopes were fated to be shattered by the cruellest of disappointments, and +how he was doomed to die in the grey desolation of a poverty-haunted room. + +Before drawing this notice to a close, it were not unfitting to recall +another name, borne by a Poet of wayward genius, who likewise wandered +astray in a forest of more than Dantean darkness, because the right way he +had for ever lost from view. That Poet was a poet of France, and the voice +of his glory and the echo of the songs he chanted resounded with that +proud and melodious note of genius which can never weary human ears. +Although this poet led a life which can be compared only to the life of +Oscar Wilde, he belonged to an order of mentality which differs too +greatly in its essential features to allow the accidents of the career of +the two men being used as a basis for comparing them closely together on +the intellectual plane. + +Verlaine belonged to that race of poets who distinguish themselves by +their perfect spontaneity; he was a veritable poet of instinct, and had +heard voices which no other mortal had heard before him on earth. In place +of the metallic verses of his predecessors, the verses that for the most +part are spoken by linguistic artists, he created a sort of ethereal +music, a song so sweet and so penetrating that it haunts us eternally like +the low, passionate, whisperings of a lover's voice. He gave us more than +royal largesse of a wonderful and delicious soul, that had no part or lot +in time, a music that was created for his soul alone; and we have +willingly forgotten many a haughtier voice for the bewitching strains that +this baptised faun played for us with such artless joy on his forest-grown +reed. + +The English poet was more complex and perhaps less sheerly human; and +even his errors have no other origin than the perpetual effort to astonish +us; whilst above all, that which staggers us most and stirs us so +profoundly is that these self-same errors, which had come into life under +such innocent conditions, became terribly real in virtue of that imperious +law which compels certain minds to render their dreams incarnate. + +As for his work, however finely polished, however exquisite it may be and +undoubtedly is, we have to confess that it has no power to move our souls +into high passion and lofty endeavour; although it might easily have +sufficed to conquer celebrity for more than one ambitious literary +craftsman. But we feel, with regard to Wilde, that we had a legitimate +right to insist on the accomplishment of far greater things, a more +sincere and genuine output, and are so much more dissatisfied because we +clearly see the great discord between the man who palpitated with intense +life, and the esthetic dandy whose cleverness overreached itself when he +tried to work out that life on admittedly artificial lines. + +This extraordinary divorce between intelligence and will-power was that +which gave rise to the striking drama of Wilde's career; albeit the word +drama looks strange and out of place, if applied only to the +sorrow-filled period that crowned with thorns the latter end of his +brilliant existence, if it be used for no other reason than to +particularize the great catastrophe that took place in the sight of all +the world. The fact is, the man's entire life was one perpetual drama. +Throughout the whole course of his existence, he persistently sought after +and that with impunity, all sorts of excitants that could at last no +longer be disguised under the name of experiences--and no doubt, others +more terrible still that fall under no human laws, would have come finally +to swell the ranks of their forerunners--and then, had the hand of Destiny +not arrested him in his course, he would have wound up by descending so +low that the artistic life of his soul would have been forever +extinguished. + +That, when all is said and done, would have been the veritable, the +irremediable tragedy. + +Fortunately, royal intellects such as these, can never utterly die, and +therein consists their greatest chastisement. Spasmodic movements agitate +them, revealing beneath their mendacious laughter the secret agony of +their souls; and we are suddenly called upon to witness the heart-rending +spectacle of the slow death-agony of a haughty, talented poet, a Petronius +self-poisoned through fear of Cæsar or a Wilde whom a vicious and +over-wrought Public had only half assassinated, raising his poor, glazed +eyes towards the marvellous Light of Truth, whose glorious vision, we know +by the sure voice that comes "from the depths," he had caught at last.... + + * * * * * + +Oscar Wilde had desired to live a pagan's free and untramelled life in +Twentieth-century England, forgetful of the enormous fact that no longer +may we live pagan-wise, for the shadow of the Cross has shed a steadily +increasing gloom over the conditions that enlivened the joyous existence +of olden times. + +C. G. + + + + +The Trial of Oscar Wilde. + + +"In all men's hearts a slumbering swine lies low", says the French poet; +so come ye, whose porcine instincts have never been awakened, or if +rampant successfully hidden, and hurl the biggest, sharpest stones you can +lay your hands on at your wretched, degraded, humiliated brother, _who has +been found out_. + + + + +The Trial of Oscar Wilde + + +The life and death of Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, _poseur_ and convict, +can only fittingly be summarised as a tragedy. Every misspent life is a +tragedy more or less; but how much more tragic appear the elements of +despair and disaster when the victim to his own vices is a man of genius +exercising a considerable influence upon the thought and culture of his +day, and possessing every advantage which birth, education, talent and +station can bestow? Oscar Wilde was more than a clever and original +thinker. He was the inventor of a certain literary style, and, though his +methods, showy and eccentric as they were, lent themselves readily to +imitation, none of his followers could approach their "Master" in the +particular mode which he had made his own. There can be two opinions as +to the merits of his plays. There can be only one judgment as to their +daring and audacious originality. Of the ordinary and the commonplace +Wilde had a horror, which with him was almost a religion. He was +unmercifully chaffed throughout America when he appeared in public in a +light green suit adorned with a large sunflower; but he did not don this +outrageous costume because he preferred such startling clothing. He +adopted the dress in order to be original and assumed it because no other +living man was likely to be so garbed. He was consumed, in fact, with +overpowering vanity. He was possessed of a veritable demon of self-esteem. +He ate strange foods, and drank unusual liquors in order to be unlike any +of his contemporaries. His eccentricities of dress continued to the end. +On the first night of one of his plays--it was a brilliant triumph--he was +called upon by an enthusiastic audience for the customary speech. He was +much exercised in his mind as to what he could say that would be +unconventional and sensational. No mere platitudes or banalities for the +author of "Lady Windermere's Fan," who made a god of the spirit of Epigram +and almost canonized the art of Repartee. He said, "Ladies and Gentlemen: +I am glad you like my play. I like it very much myself too," which, if +candid, was hardly the remark of a modest and retiring author. The leopard +cannot change his spots and neither can the lion his skin. Even in his +beautiful book, "De Profundis"--surely the most extraordinary volume of +recent years--the man's character is writ so plainly that he who runs may +read. Man of letters, man of fashion, man of hideous vices, Oscar Wilde +remained to the last moment of his murdered life, a self-conscious +egotist. "Gentlemen," he gasped on his death-bed, hearing the doctors +express misgivings as to their fees, "it would appear that I am dying +beyond my means!" It was a brilliant sally and one can picture the +startled faces of the medical attendants. A genius lay a-dying and a +genius he remained till the breath of life departed. + +Genius we know to be closely allied to insanity and it were charitable to +describe this man as mad, besides approaching very nearly to the truth. +Something was out of gear in that finely attuned mind. Some thorn there +was among the intellectual roses which made him what he was. He pined for +strange passions, new sensations. His was the temperament of the Roman +sybarite. He often sighed for a return of the days when vice was deified. +He spoke of the glories of the Devastation, the awful woman and the +Alexandrian school at which little girls and young boys were instructed in +all the most secret and unthinkable forms of vice. Modern women satisfied +him not. Perverted passions consumed the fire of his being. He had had +children of his wife, but sexual intercourse between him and that most +unfortunate lady was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. +They had their several rooms. On many occasions Wilde actually brought the +companions of his abominable rites and sinful joys to his own home, and +indulged in his frightful propensities beneath the roof of the house which +sheltered his own sons and their most unhappy mother. Could the man +capable of this atrocity possess a normal mind? Can Oscar Wilde, who +committed moral suicide and made of himself a social pariah, be regarded +as a sane man? London society is not so strict nor straight-laced that it +will not forgive much laxity in its devoted votaries. Rumour had been busy +with the name of Oscar Wilde for a long time before the whole awful truth +became known. He was seen, constantly, at theatres and restaurants with +persons in no way fit to be his associates and these persons were not +girls or women. He paraded his shameful friendships and flaunted his +villainous companions in society's face. People began to look askance at +the famous wit. Doors began to be closed to him. He was ostracised by all +but the most Bohemian coteries. But even those who were still proud to +rank him among their friends did not know how far he had wilfully drawn +himself into the web of disgrace. Much that seemed strange and +unaccountable was attributed to his well-known love of pose. Men shrugged +their shoulders and declared that "Wilde meant no harm. It was his +vainglorious way of showing his contempt for the opinion of the world. Men +of such parts could not be judged by ordinary standards. Intellectually +Wilde was fit to mix with the immortals. If he preferred the society of +miserable, beardless, stunted youths destitute alike of decency or +honour--it was no affair of theirs," and so on _ad nauseam_. Meanwhile, +heedless of the warnings of friends and the sneers of foes, Wilde went his +own way--to destruction. + +He was addicted to the vice and crime of sodomy long before he formed a +"friendship" which was destined to involve him in irretrievable ruin. In +London, he met a younger son of the eccentric Marquis of Queensbury, Lord +Alfred Douglas by name. This youth was being educated at Cambridge. He +was of peculiar temperament and talented in a strong, frothy style. He was +good-looking in an effeminate, lady-like way. He wrote verse. His poems +not being of a manner which could be acceptable to a self-respecting +publication, his efforts appeared in an eccentric and erratic magazine +which was called "The Chameleon." In this precious serial appeared a +"poem" from the pen of Lord Alfred dedicated to his father in these filial +words: "To the Man I Hate." + +Oscar Wilde at once developed an extraordinary and dangerous interest in +this immature literary egg. A being of his own stamp, after his own heart, +was Lord Alfred Douglas. The love of women delighted him not. The +possession of a young girl's person had no charm for him. He yearned for +higher flights in the realms of love! He sought unnatural affection. +Wilde, experienced in all the symptoms of a disordered sexual fancy, +contrived to exercise a remarkable and sinister influence over this youth. +Again and again and again did his father implore Lord Alfred Douglas to +separate himself from the tempter. Lord Queensberry threatened, persuaded, +bribed, urged, cajoled: all to no purpose. Wilde and his son were +constantly together. The nature of their friendship became the talk of the +town. It was proclaimed from the housetops. The Marquis, determined to +rescue him if it were humanly possible, horsewhipped his son in a public +thoroughfare and was threatened with a summons for assault. On one +occasion--it was the opening night of one of the Wilde plays--he sent the +author a bouquet of choice--vegetables! Three or four times he wrote to +him begging him to cancel his friendship with Lord Alfred. Once he called +at the house in Tite Street and there was a terrible scene. The Marquis +fumed; Wilde laughed. He assured his Lordship that only at his son's own +request would he break off the association which existed between them. The +Marquis, driven to desperation, called Wilde a disgusting name. The +latter, with a show of wrath, ordered the peer from his door and he was +obliged to leave. + +At all costs and hazards, at the risk of any pain and grief to himself, +Lord Queensberry was determined to break off the disgraceful _liaison_. He +stopped his son's allowance, but Wilde had, at that time, plenty of money +and his purse was his friend's. At last the father went to the length of +leaving an insulting message for Oscar Wilde at that gentleman's club. He +called there and asked for Wilde. The clerk at the enquiry office stated +that Mr. Wilde was not on the premises. The Marquis then produced a card +and wrote upon it in pencil these words, "Oscar Wilde is a Bugger." This +elegant missive he directed to be handed to the author when he should next +appear at the club. + +From this card--Lord Queensberry's last resource--grew the whole great +case, which amazed and horrified the world in 1895. Oscar Wilde was +compelled, however reluctantly, to take the matter up. Had he remained +quiescent under such a public affront, his career in England would have +been at an end. He bowed to the inevitable and a libel action was +prepared. + +One is often compelled to wonder if he foresaw the outcome. One asks +oneself if he realized what defeat in this case would portend. The stakes +were desperately high. He risked, in a Court of Law, his reputation, his +position, his career and even his freedom. Did he know what the end to it +all would be? + +Whatever Wilde's fears and expectations were, his opponent did not +under-estimate the importance of the issue. If he could not induce a jury +of twelve of his fellow-countrymen to believe that the plaintiff was what +he had termed him, he, the Marquis of Queensberry, would be himself +disgraced. Furthermore, there would, in the event of failure, be heavy +damages to pay and the poor man was not over rich. Wilde had many and +powerful friends. For reasons which it is not necessary to enlarge upon, +Lord Queensberry was not liked or respected by his own order. The ultimate +knowledge that he was a father striving to save a loved son from infamy +changed all that, and his Lordship met with nothing but sympathy from the +general public in the latter stages of the great case. + +Sir Edward Clarke was retained for the plaintiff. It is needless to refer +to the high estimation in which this legal and political luminary is held +by all classes of society. From first to last he devoted himself to the +lost cause of Oscar Wilde with a whole-hearted devotion which was beyond +praise. The upshot of the libel action must have pained and disgusted him; +yet he refused to abandon his client, and, in the two criminal trials, +defended him with a splendid loyalty and with the marked ability that +might be expected from such a counsel. The acute, energetic, silver-spoken +Mr. Carson led on the other side. It is not necessary to make more than +passing mention of the conspicuous skill with which the able lawyer +conducted the case for the defendant. Even the gifted plaintiff himself +cut a sorry figure when opposed to Mr. Carson. + +Extraordinary interest was displayed in the action; and the courts were +besieged on each day that the trial lasted. Remarkable revelations were +expected and they were indeed forthcoming. Enormous pains had been taken +to provide a strong defence and it was quite clear almost after the first +day that Wilde's case would infallibly break down. He made some +astonishing admissions in the witness-box and even disgusted many of his +friends by the flippancy and affected unconcern of his replies to +questions of the most damaging nature. He, apparently, saw nothing +indecorous in facts which must shock any other than the most depraved. He +saw nothing disgusting in friendships of a kind to which only one +construction could be put. He gave expensive dinners to ex-barmen and the +like: ignorant, brutish young fools--because they amused him! He presented +youths of questionable moral character with silver cigarette-cases because +their society was pleasant! He took young men to share his bedroom at +hotels and saw nothing remarkable in such proceedings. He gave sums of +thirty pounds to ill-bred youths--accomplished blackmailers--because they +were hard-up and he felt they did not deserve poverty! He assisted other +young men of a character equally undesirable, to go to America and +received letters from them in which they addressed him as "Dear Oscar," +and sent him their love. In short, his own statements damned him. Out of +his own mouth--and he posing all the time--was he convicted. The case +could have but one ending. Sir Edward Clarke--pained, surprised, +shocked--consented to a verdict for the Marquis of Queensberry and the +great libel case was at an end. The defendant left the court proudly +erect, conscious that he had been the means of saving his son and of +eradicating from society a canker which had been rotting it unnoticed, +except by a few, for a very long time. Oscar Wilde left the court a ruined +and despised man. People--there were one or two left who were loyal to +him--turned aside from him with loathing. He had nodded to six or seven +friends in court on the last day of the trial and turned ashen pale when +he observed their averted looks. All was over for him. The little +supper-parties with a few choice wits; the glorious intoxication of +first-night applause; the orgies in the infamous dens of his boon +companions--all these were no more for him. Oscar Wilde, _bon vivant_, man +of letters, arbiter of literary fashion, stood at the bar of public +opinion, a wretch guilty of crimes against which the body recoils and the +mind revolts. Oh! what a falling-off was there! + + * * * * * + +If any reader would care to know the impression made upon the opinion of +the London world by the revelations of this lawsuit, let him turn to the +"Daily Telegraph" of the morning following the dramatic result of the +trial. In that great newspaper appeared a leading article in reference to +Oscar Wilde, the terms of which, though deserved, were most scathing, +denunciatory, and bitter. Yet a general feeling of relief permeated the +regret which was universally expressed at so terrible a termination of a +distinguished career. Society was at no pains to hide its relief that the +Augean stable has been cleansed and that a terrible scandal had been +exorcised from its midst. + +It now becomes a necessary, albeit painful task, to describe the +happenings incidental or subsequent to the Wilde & Queensberry +proceedings. It was certain that matters could not be allowed to rest as +they were. A jury in a public court had convinced themselves that Lord +Queensberry's allegations were strictly true and the duty of the Public +Prosecutor was truly clear. The law is not, or should not be, a respector +of persons, and Oscar Wilde, genius though he were, was not less amenable +to the law than would be any ignorant boor suspected of similar crimes. +The machinery of legal process was set in action and the arrest of Wilde +followed as a matter of course. + +A prominent name in the libel action against Lord Queensberry had been +that of one Alfred Taylor. This individual, besides being himself guilty +of the most infamous practices, had, it would appear, for long acted as a +sort of precursor for the Apostle of Culture and his capture took place at +nearly the same time as that of his principal. The latter was arrested at +a certain quiet and fashionable hotel whither he had gone with one or two +yet loyal friends after the trial for libel. His arrest was not +unexpected, of course; but it created a tremendous sensation and vast +crowds collected at Bow Street Police Station and in the vicinity during +the preliminary examinations before the Magistrate. The prisoner Wilde +bore himself with some show of fortitude, but it was clear that the iron +had already entered into his soul and his old air of jaunty indifference +to the opinion of the world had plainly given way to a mental anxiety +which could not altogether be hidden, though it could be controlled. On +one occasion as, fur-coated, silk-hatted, he entered the dock, he nodded +familiarly to the late Sir Augustus Harris, but that magnate of the +theatrical world deliberately turned his back upon the playwriting +celebrity. The evidence from first to last was followed with the most +intense interest and the end of it was that Oscar Wilde was fully +committed for trial. + +The case came on at the Old Bailey during the month of April, 1895, and it +was seen that the interest had in no wise abated. Mr. Justice Charles +presided and he was accompanied by the customary retinue of Corporation +dignitaries. The court was crowded in every part and hundreds of people +were unsuccessful in efforts to obtain admission. A reporter for a Sunday +newspaper wrote: "Wilde's personal appearance has changed little since his +committal from Bow Street. He wears the same clothes and continues to +carry the same hat. He looks haggard and worn, and his long hair that was +so carefully arranged when last he was in the court, though not then in +the dock, is now dishevelled. Taylor, on the other hand, still neatly +dressed, appears not to have suffered from his enforced confinement. But +he no longer attempts to regard the proceedings with that indifference +which he affected when first before the magistrate." + +As soon as Wilde and his confederate took their places in the dock, each +held a whispered consultation with his counsel and the Clerk of Arraigns +then read over the indictments. Both prisoners pleaded "Not guilty," +Taylor speaking in a loud and confident tone. Wilde spoke quietly, looked +very grave and gave attentive heed to the formal opening proceedings. + +Mr. C. F. Gill led for the prosecution and he rose amidst a breathless +silence, to outline the main facts of the case. After begging the jury to +dismiss from their minds anything that they might have heard or read in +regard to the affair, and to abandon all prejudice on either side, he +described at some length the circumstances which led up to the present +prosecution. He spoke of the arrest and committal of the Marquis of +Queensberry on a charge of criminal libel and of the collapse of the case +for the prosecution when the case was heard at the Old Bailey. He alluded +to the subsequent inevitable arrest of Wilde and Taylor and of the +committal of both prisoners to take their trial at the present Sessions. + +Wilde, he said, was well-known as a dramatic author and generally, as a +literary man of unusual attainments. He had resided, until his arrest, at +a house in Tite Street, Chelsea, where his wife lived with the children of +the marriage. Taylor had had numerous addresses, but for the time covered +by these charges, had dwelt in Little College Street, and afterwards in +Chapel Street. Although Wilde had a house in Tite Street, he had at +different times occupied rooms in St. James's Place, the Savoy Hotel and +the Albermarle Hotel. It would be shown that Wilde and Taylor were in +league for certain purposes and Mr. Gill then explained the specific +allegations against the prisoners. Wilde, he asserted, had not hesitated, +soon after his first introduction to Taylor, to explain to him to what +purpose he wished to put their acquaintance. Taylor was familiar with a +number of young men who were in the habit of giving their bodies, or +selling them, to other men for the purpose of sodomy. It appeared that +there was a number of youths engaged in this abominable traffic and that +one and all of them were known to Taylor, who went about and sought out +for them men of means who were willing to pay heavily for the indulgence +of their favorite vice. Mr. Gill endeavoured to show that Taylor himself +was given to sodomy and that he had himself indulged in these filthy +practices with the same youths as he agreed to procure for Wilde. The +visits of the latter to Taylor's rooms were touched upon and the +circumstances attending these visits were laid bare. On nearly every +occasion when Wilde called, a young man was present with whom he committed +the act of sodomy. The names of various young men connected with these +facts were mentioned in turn and the case of the two Parkers was given as +a sample of many others on which the learned counsel preferred to dwell +with less minuteness. + +When Taylor gave up his rooms in Little College Street and took up his +abode in Chapel Street, he left behind him a number of compromising +papers, which would be produced in evidence against the prisoners; and he +should submit in due course that there was abundant corroboration of the +statements of the youths involved. Mr. Gill pointed out the peculiarities +in the case of Frederick Atkins. This youth had accompanied the prisoner +Wilde to Paris, and there could be no doubt whatever that the latter had +in the most systematic way endeavoured to influence this young man's mind +towards vicious courses and had endeavoured to mould him to his own +depraved will. The relations which had existed between the prisoner and +another lad, one Alfred Wood, were also fully described and the learned +counsel made special allusion to the remarkable manner in which Wilde had +lavished money upon Wood prior to the departure of that youth for America. + +Mr. Gill referred to yet another of Wilde's youthful familiars--namely: +Sidney Mavor--in regard to whom, he said, the jury must form their own +conclusions after they had heard the evidence. Among other things to which +he would ask them to direct careful attention was a letter written in +pencil by Taylor, the prisoner, to this youth. The communication ran: +"Dear Sid, I cannot wait any longer. Come at once and see Oscar at Tite +Street. I am, Yours ever, Alfred Taylor." The use of the christian name of +Wilde in so familiar a way suggested the nature of the acquaintance which +existed between Mavor and Wilde, who was old enough to be his father. In +conclusion, Mr. Gill asked the jury to give the case, painful as it must +necessarily be, their most earnest and careful consideration. + +Both Wilde and Taylor paid keen attention to the opening statement. They +exchanged no word together and it was observed that Wilde kept as far +apart from his companion in the dock, as he possibly could. + +The first witness called was Charles Parker. He proved to be a rather +smartly-attired youth, fresh-coloured, and of course, clean-shaven. He was +very pale and appeared uneasy. He stated that he had first met Taylor at +the St. James' Restaurant. The latter had got into conversation with him +and the young fellows with him, and had insisted on "standing" drinks. +Conversation of a certain nature passed between them. Taylor called +attention to the prostitutes who frequent Piccadilly Circus and remarked: +"I can't understand sensible men wasting their money on painted trash like +that. Many do, though. But there are a few who know better. Now, you could +get money in a certain way easily enough, if you cared to." The witness +had formerly been a valet and he was at this time out of employment. He +understood to what Taylor alluded and made a coarse reply. + +Mr. GILL.--"I am obliged to ask you what it was you actually said." + +WITNESS.--"I do not like to say." + +Mr. GILL.--"You were less squeamish at the time, I daresay. I ask you for +the words." + +WITNESS.--"I said that if any old gentleman with money took a fancy to +me, I was agreeable. I was terribly hard up." + +Mr. GILL.--"What did Taylor say?" + +WITNESS.--"He laughed and said that men far cleverer, richer and better +than I preferred things of that kind." + +Mr. GILL.--"Did Taylor mention the prisoner Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Not at that time. He arranged to meet me again and I +consented." + +Mr. GILL.--"Where did you first meet Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"At the Solferino Restaurant." + +Mr. GILL.--"Tell me what transpired." + +WITNESS.--"Taylor said he could introduce me to a man who was good for +plenty of money. Wilde came in later and I was formally introduced. Dinner +was served for four in a private room." + +Mr. GILL.--"Who made the fourth?" + +WITNESS.--"My brother, William Parker. I had promised Taylor that he +should accompany me." + +Mr. GILL.--"What happened during dinner?" + +WITNESS.--"There was plenty of champagne and brandy and coffee. We all +partook of it." + +Mr. GILL.--"Of what nature was the conversation?" + +WITNESS.--"General, at first. Nothing was then said as to the purposes for +which we had come together." + +Mr. GILL.--"And then?" + +WITNESS.--"Wilde invited me to go to his rooms at the Savoy Hotel. Only he +and I went, leaving my brother and Taylor behind. Wilde and I went in a +cab. At the Savoy we went to his--Wilde's--sitting-room." + +Mr. GILL.--"More drink was offered you there?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes; we had liqueurs." + +Mr. GILL.--"Let us know what occurred." + +WITNESS.--"He committed the act of sodomy upon me." + +Mr. GILL.--"With your consent?" + +The witness did not reply. Further examined, he said that Wilde on that +occasion had given him two pounds and asked him to call upon him again a +week later. He did so, the same thing occurred and Wilde then gave him +three pounds. The witness next described a visit to Little College Street, +to Taylor's rooms. Wilde used to call there and the same thing occurred as +at the Savoy. For a fortnight or three weeks the witness lodged in +Park-Walk, close to Taylor's house. There too he was visited by Wilde. The +witness gave a detailed account of the disgusting proceedings there. He +said, "I was asked by Wilde to imagine that I was a woman and that he was +my lover. I had to keep up this illusion. I used to sit on his knees and +he used to play with my privates as a man might amuse himself with a +girl." Wilde insisted in this filthy make-believe being kept up. Wilde +gave him a silver cigarette case and a gold ring, both of which articles +he pawned. The prisoner said, "I don't suppose boys are different to girls +in acquiring presents from them who are fond of them." He remembered Wilde +having rooms at St. James's Place and the witness visited him there. + +Mr. GILL.--"Where else have you been with Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"To Kettner's Restaurant." + +Mr. GILL.--"What happened there?" + +WITNESS.--"We dined there. We always had a lot of wine. Wilde would talk +of poetry and art during dinner, and of the old Roman days." + +Mr. GILL.--"On one occasion you proceeded from Kettner's to Wilde's +house?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. We went to Tite Street. It was very late at night. Wilde +let himself and me in with a latchkey. I remained the night, sleeping with +the prisoner, and he himself let me out in the early morning before anyone +was about." + +Mr. GILL.--"Where else have you visited this man?" + +WITNESS.--"At the Albemarle Hotel. The same thing happened then." + +Mr. GILL.--"Where did your last interview take place?" + +WITNESS.--"I last saw Wilde in Trafalgar Square about nine months ago. He +was in a hansom and saw me. He alighted from the hansom." + +Mr. GILL.--"What did he say?" + +WITNESS.--"He said, 'Well, you are looking as pretty as ever.' He did not +ask me to go anywhere with him then." + +The witness went on to say that during the period of his acquaintance with +Wilde, he frequently saw Taylor, and the latter quite understood and was +aware of the motive of the acquaintance. At the Little College Street +rooms he had frequently seen Wood, Atkins and Scaife, and he knew that +these youths were "in the same line, at the same game," as himself. In the +August previous to this trial he was at a certain house in Fitzroy +Square. Orgies of the most disgraceful kind used to happen there. The +police made a raid upon the premises and he and the Taylors were arrested. +From that time he had ceased all relationship with the latter. Since that +event he had enlisted, and while away in the country he was seen by +someone representing Lord Queensberry and made a statement. The evidence +of this witness created a great sensation in court, and it was increased +when Sir Edward Clarke rose to cross-examine. This began after the +adjournment. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"When were you seen in the country in reference to +this case?" + +WITNESS.--"Towards the end of March." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who saw you?" + +WITNESS.--"Mr. Russell." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was there no examination before that?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you state at Bow Street that you received £30 not to say +anything about a certain case?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Now, I do not ask you to give me the name of the gentleman +from whom this money was extorted, but I ask you to give me the name of +the agents." + +WITNESS.--"Wood & Allen." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where were you living then?" + +WITNESS.--"In Cranford Street." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did the incident occur in consequence of which you +received that £30?" + +WITNESS.--"About two weeks before." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where?" + +WITNESS.--"At Camera Square." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I'll leave that question. You say positively that Mr. Wilde +committed sodomy with you at the Savoy?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"But you have been in the habit of accusing other gentlemen +of the same offence?" + +WITNESS.--"Never, unless it has been done." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I submit that you blackmail gentlemen?" + +WITNESS.--"No, Sir, I have accepted money, but it has been offered to me +to pay me for the offence. I have been solicited. I have never suggested +this offence to gentlemen." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was the door locked during the time you describe?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not think so. It was late and the prisoner told the waiter +not to come up again." + +The next witness was William Parker. This youth corroborated his brother's +evidence. He said he was present at the dinner with Taylor and Wilde +described by the last witness. Wilde paid all his attention to +his--witness's--brother. He, Wilde, often fed his brother off his own fork +or out of his own spoon. His brother accepted a preserved cherry from +Wilde's own mouth--he took it into his and this trick was repeated three +or four times. His brother went off with the prisoner to his rooms at the +Savoy and the witness remained behind with Taylor, who said, "Your brother +is lucky. Oscar does not care what he pays if he fancies a chap." + +Ellen Grant was the landlady of the house in Little College Street at +which Taylor lodged. She gave evidence as to the visits of various lords +and stated that Wilde was a fairly frequent caller. He would remain for +hours and one of the lads was generally closeted with him. Once she tried +the door and found it locked. She heard whispering and laughing and her +suspicions were aroused though she did not like to take steps in the +matter. + +Lucy Rumsby, who let a room to Charles Parker at Chelsea, gave rather +similar evidence, but Wilde does not appear to have called there more than +once and that occasion it was to take out Parker, who went away with him. + +Sophia Gray, Taylor's landlady in Chapel Street, also gave evidence. She +amused the court by the emphatic and outspoken way in which she explained +that she had no idea of the nature of what was going on. Several young men +were constantly calling upon Taylor and were alone with him for a long +time, but he used to say that they were clerks for whom he hoped to find +employment. The prisoner Wilde was a frequent visitor. + +But all this latter evidence paled as regards sinister significance beside +that furnished by a young man named Alfred Wood. This young wretch +admitted to acts of the grossest indecency with Oscar Wilde. He said, +"Wilde saw his influence to induce me to consent. He made me nearly drunk. +He used to put his hand inside my trousers beneath the table at dinner and +compel me to do the same to him. Afterwards, I used to lie on a sofa with +him. It was a long time, however, before I would allow him to actually do +the act of sodomy. He gave me money to go to America." + +Sir Edward Clarke submitted this self-disgraced witness to a very vigorous +cross-examination. + +Sir EDWARD.--"What have you been doing since your return from America?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, I have not done much." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you done anything?" + +WITNESS.--"I have had no regular employment." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I thought not." + +WITNESS.--"I could not get anything to do." + +Sir EDWARD.--"As a matter of fact, you have had no respectable work for +over three years?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, no." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did not you, in conjunction with Allen, succeed in getting +£300 from a gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes; but he was guilty with Allen." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How much did you receive?" + +WITNESS.--"I advised Allen how to proceed. He gave me £130." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who else got any of this money?" + +WITNESS.--"Parker. Charles Parker got some and also Wood." + +Thos. Price was the next witness. This man was a waiter at a private hotel +in St. James's and he testified to Wilde's visits there and to the number +of young men, "of quite inferior station," who called to see him. Then +came Frank Atkins, whose evidence is given in full. + +Mr. AVORY.--"How old are you?" + +WITNESS.--"I am 20 years old." + +Mr. AVORY.--"What is your business?" + +WITNESS.--"I have been a billiard-marker." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You are doing nothing now?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Who introduced you to Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"I was introduced to him by Schwabe in November, 1892." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Have you met Lord Alfred Douglas?" + +WITNESS.--"I have. I dined with him and Wilde on several occasions. They +pressed me to go to Paris." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You went with them?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You told Wilde on one occasion while in Paris that you had +spent the previous night with a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"No. I had arranged to meet a girl at the Moulin Rouge, and +Wilde told me not to go. However, I did go, but the woman was not there." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You returned to London with Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Did he give you money?" + +WITNESS.--"He gave me a cigarette-case." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You were then the best of friends?" + +WITNESS.--"He called me Fred and I addressed him as Oscar. We liked each +other, but there was no harm in it." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Did you visit Wilde on your return?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, at Tite Street. Wilde also called upon me at Osnaburgh +Street. On the latter occasion one of the Parkers was present." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You know most of these youths. Do you know Sidney Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"Only by sight." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"Were you ill at Osnaburgh Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, I had small-pox and was removed to the hospital ship. +Before I went I wrote to Parker asking him to write to Wilde and request +him to come and see me, and he did so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You are sure you returned from Paris with Mr. Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did any impropriety ever take place between you and Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Never." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you ever lived with a man named Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What was he?" + +WITNESS.--"A bookmaker." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you and this Burton been engaged in the business of +blackmailing?" + +WITNESS.--"I have a professional name. I have sometimes called myself +Denny." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Has this man Burton, to your knowledge, obtained money from +gentlemen by accusing them or threatening to accuse them of certain +offences?" + +WITNESS.--"Not to my knowledge." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Not in respect to a certain Birmingham gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"That being your answer, I must particularize. On June 9th, +1891, did you and Burton obtain a large sum of money from a Birmingham +gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"Certainly not." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Then I ask you if in June, '91, Burton did not take rooms +for you in Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes; and he lived with me there." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were in the habit of taking men home with you then?" + +WITNESS.--"Not for the purposes of blackmail." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Well, for indecent purposes." + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Give me the names of two or three of the people whom you +have taken home to that address?" + +WITNESS.--"I cannot. I forget them." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Now I am going to ask you a direct question, and I ask you +to be careful in your reply. Were you and Burton ever taken to Rochester +Road Police Station?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Well, was Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"I think not--at least, he was not, to my knowledge." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did the Birmingham gentleman give to Burton a cheque for +£200 drawn in the name of S. Denis or Denny, your own name?" + +WITNESS.--"Not to my knowledge." + +Sir EDWARD.--"About two years ago, did you and someone else go to the +Victoria Hotel with two American gentlemen?" + +WITNESS.--"No, I did not. Never." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I think you did. Be careful in your replies. Did Burton +extort money from these gentlemen?" + +WITNESS.--"I have never been there at all." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you ever been to Anderton's Hotel and stayed a night +with a gentleman, whom you threatened the next morning with exposure?" + +WITNESS.--"I have not." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did you go abroad with Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"I think in February, 1892." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did you last go with him abroad?" + +WITNESS.--"Last spring." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How long were you away?" + +WITNESS.--"Oh! about a month." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where did you stay?" + +WITNESS.--"We went to Nice and stayed at Gaze's Hotel." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were having a holiday?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Which you continued with business in your usual way?" + +The witness did not reply. + +Sir EDWARD.--"What were you and Burton doing at Nice?" + +WITNESS.--"Simply enjoying ourselves." + +Sir EDWARD.--"During this visit of enjoyment you and Burton fell out, I +think." + +WITNESS.--"Oh, dear, no!" + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet you separated from this Burton after that visit?" + +WITNESS.--"I gave up being a bookmaker's clerk." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What name did Burton use in the ring?" + +WITNESS.--"Watson was his betting name." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you blackmail a gentleman at Nice?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Are you sure there was no quarrel between you and Burton at +Nice?" + +WITNESS.--"There may have been a little one, but I don't remember anything +of the kind." + +Mr. Grain then put some questions to the Witness. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you go to Scarbro' about a year ago?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did Burton go with you?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What was your business there?" + +WITNESS.--"I was engaged professionally. I sang at the Aquarium there." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you get acquainted while there with a foreign gentleman, +a Count?" + +WITNESS.--"Not acquainted." + +At this moment Mr. Grain wrote a name on a piece of paper and handed it up +to the witness, who read it. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Do you know that gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"No, I heard his name mentioned at Scarborough." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Then you never spoke to him?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Was not a large sum--about £500--paid to you or Burton by +that gentleman about this time last year?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Had you any engagement at the Scarborough Aquarium?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"How much did you receive a week?" + +WITNESS.--"I was paid four pounds ten shillings." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"How long were you there?" + +WITNESS.--"Three weeks." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Have you ever lived in Buckingham Palace Road?" + +WITNESS.--"I have." + +Mr. Grain wrote at this stage on another slip of paper and it was handed +up to the witness-box. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Look at that piece of paper. Do you know the name written +there?" + +WITNESS.--"I never saw it before." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"When were you living in Buckingham Palace Road?" + +WITNESS.--"In 1892." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Do you remember being introduced to an elderly man in the +City?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you take him to your room, permit him to commit sodomy +with and upon you, rob him of his pocket-book and threaten him with +exposure if he complained?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you threaten to extort money from him because he had +agreed to accompany you home for a foul purpose?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you ever stay at a place in the suburbs on the South +Western Railway with Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What other addresses have you had in London during the last +three years?" + +WITNESS.--"None but those I have told you." + +This concluded the evidence of this witness for the time being. + +Mary Applegate, employed as a housekeeper at Osnaburgh Street, said Atkins +used to lodge there and left about a month ago. Wilde visited him at this +house on two occasions that she was cognisant of. She stated that one of +the housemaids came to her and complained of the state of the sheets of +the bed in which Atkins slept after Wilde's first visit. The sheets were +stained in a peculiar way. It may be explained here, in order to make the +witness's evidence understood, that the sodomistic act has much the same +effect as an enema inserted up the rectum. There is an almost immediate +discharge, though not, of course, to the extent produced by the enema +operation. + +The next witness called was Sidney Mavor, a smooth-faced young fellow with +dark hair and eyes. He stated that he was now in partnership with a friend +in the City. He first made the acquaintance of the prisoner Taylor at the +Gaiety Theatre in 1892. He afterwards visited him at Little College +Street. Taylor was very civil and friendly and introduced him to different +people. The witness did not think at that time that Taylor had any +ulterior designs. One day, however, Taylor said to him, "I know a man, in +an influential position, who could be of great use to you, Mavor. He likes +young men when they're modest and nice in manners and appearance. I'll +introduce you." It was arranged that they should dine at Kettner's +Restaurant the next evening. He called for Taylor, who said, "I am glad +you've made yourself pretty. Mr. Wilde likes nice, clean boys." That was +the first time Wilde's name was mentioned. Arrived at the restaurant, they +were shown into a private room. A man named Schwabe and Wilde and another +gentleman came in later. He believed the other gentleman to be Lord +Alfred Douglas. The conversation at dinner was, the witness thought, +peculiar, but he knew Wilde was a Bohemian and he did not think the talk +strange. He was placed next to Wilde, who used occasionally to pull his +ear or chuck him under the chin, but he did nothing that was actually +objectionable. He, Wilde, said to Taylor, "Our little lad has pleasing +manners; we must see more of him." Wilde took his address and the witness +soon after received a silver cigarette-case inscribed "Sidney, from O. W. +October 1892." "It was," said the innocent-looking witness, "quite a +surprise to me!" In the same month he received a letter making an +appointment at the Albemarle Hotel and he went there and saw Wilde. The +witness explained that after he saw Mr. Russell, the solicitor, on March +30th, he did not visit Taylor, nor did he receive a letter from Taylor. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"With regard to a certain dinner at which you were +present. Was the gentleman who gave the dinner of some social position?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Taylor sent or gave you some cheques, I believe?" + +WITNESS.--"He did." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Were they in payment of money you had advanced to him, +merely?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. C. F. GILL.--"The gentleman--'of position'--who gave the dinner was +quite a young man, was he not?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"Was Taylor, and Wilde also, present?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"In fact, it was their first meeting, was it not?" + +WITNESS.--"So I understand." + +Mavor being dismissed from the box, Edward Shelley was the next witness. +He gave his age as twenty-one and said that in 1891 he was employed by a +firm of publishers in Vigo Street. At that time Wilde's books were being +published by that firm. Wilde was in the habit of coming to the firm's +place of business and he seemed to take note of the witness and generally +stopped and spoke to him for a few moments. As Wilde was leaving Vigo +Street one day he invited him to dine with him at the Albemarle Hotel. The +witness kept the appointment--he was proud of the invitation--and they +dined together in a public room. Wilde was very kind and attentive, +pressed witness to drink, said he could get him on and finally invited him +to go with him to Brighton, Cromer, and Paris. The witness did not go. +Wilde made him a present of a set of his writings, including the notorious +and objectionable "Dorian Gray." Wilde wrote something in the books. "To +one I like well," or something to that effect, but the witness removed the +pages bearing the inscription. He only did that after the decision in the +Queenberry case. He was ashamed of the inscriptions and felt that they +were open to misconception. His father objected to his friendship with +Wilde. At first the witness thought that the latter was a kind of +philanthropist, fond of youth and eager to be of assistance to young men +of any promise. Certain speeches and actions on the part of Wilde caused +him to alter this opinion. Pressed as to the nature of the actions he +complained of, he said that Wilde once kissed him and put his arms round +him. The witness objected vigorously, according to his own statement, and +Wilde later said he was sorry and that he had drank too much wine. About +two years ago--in 1893--he wrote a certain letter to Wilde. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"On what subject?" + +WITNESS.--"It was to break off the acquaintance." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How did the letter begin?" + +WITNESS.--"It began 'Sir'." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Give me the gist of it." + +WITNESS.--"I believe I said I have suffered more from my acquaintance with +you than you are ever likely to know of. I further said that he was an +immoral man, and that I would never, if I could help it, see him again." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you ever see him again after that?" + +WITNESS.--"I did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Why did you go and dine with Mr. Wilde a second time?" + +WITNESS.--"I suppose I was a young fool. I tried to think the best of +him." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You seem to have put the worst possible construction on his +liking for you. Did your friendly relations with Mr. Wilde remain unbroken +until the time you wrote that letter in March, 1893?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you seen Mr. Wilde since then?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"After that letter?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where did you see him?" + +WITNESS.--"I went to see him in Tite Street." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE then proceeded to question the witness with regard to +letters which he had written to Wilde both before and after the visits to +the Albemarle Hotel, and in the course of his replies the witness said +that he formed the opinion that "Wilde was really sorry for what he had +done." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"What do you mean by 'what he had done'?" + +WITNESS.--"His improper behaviour with young men." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet you say he never practised any actual improprieties upon +you?" + +WITNESS.--"Because he saw that I would never allow anything of the kind. +He did not disguise from me what he wanted, or what his usual customs with +young men were." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet you wrote him grateful letters breathing apparent +friendship?" + +WITNESS.--"For the reason I have given." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Well, we'll leave that question. Now, tell me, why did you +leave the Vigo Street firm of publishers?" + +WITNESS.--"Because it got to be known that I was friendly with Oscar +Wilde." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you leave the firm of your own accord?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Why?" + +WITNESS.--"People employed there--my fellow-clerks--chaffed me about my +acquaintance with Wilde." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In what way?" + +WITNESS.--"They implied scandalous things. They called me 'Mrs. Wilde' and +'Miss Oscar.'" + +Sir EDWARD.--"So you left?" + +WITNESS.--"I resolved to put an end to an intolerable position." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were in bad odour at home too, I think?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, a little." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I put it to you that your father requested you to leave his +house?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. He strongly objected to my friendship with Wilde." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were uneasy in your mind as to Wilde's object?" + +WITNESS.--"That is so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did your mental balance, if I can put it so, recover +itself?" + +WITNESS.--"About October or November last." + +Sir EDWARD.--"And have you remained well ever since?" + +WITNESS.--"I think so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet I find that in January of this year you were in serious +trouble?" + +WITNESS.--"In what way?" + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were arrested for an assault upon your father?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, I was." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where were you taken?" + +WITNESS.--"To the Fulham Police Station." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were offered bail?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you send to Wilde and ask him to bail you out?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What happened?" + +WITNESS.--"In an hour my father went to the station and I was liberated." + +This witness now being released, the previous witness, Atkins, was +recalled and a very sensational incident arose. During the luncheon +interval, Mr. Robert Humphreys, Wilde's solicitor, had been busy. Not +satisfied with Atkins's replies to the questions put to him in +cross-examination, he had searched the records at Scotland Yard and +Rochester Road and made some startling discoveries. A folded document was +handed up to the Judge. Mr. Justice Charles, who read it at once, assumed +a severe expression. The document was understood to be a copy of a record +from Rochester Road. Atkins, looking very sheepish and uncomfortable, +re-entered the witness-box and the Court prepared itself for some +startling disclosures. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"Now, I warn you to attend and to be very careful. I +am going to ask you a question; think before you reply." + +The JUDGE.--"Just be careful now, Atkins." + +Sir EDWARD.--"On June 10th, 1891, you were living at Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In Pimlico?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"James Burton was living there with you?" + +WITNESS.--"He was." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Were you both taken by two constables, 396 A & 500 A--you +may have forgotten the officer's numbers--to Rochester Road Police +Station and charged with demanding money from a gentleman with menaces. +You had threatened to accuse him of a disgusting offence?" + +WITNESS.--(huskily)--"I was not charged with that." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Were you taken to the police station?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You, and Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What were you charged with?" + +WITNESS.--"With striking a gentleman." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In what place was it alleged this happened?" + +WITNESS.--"At the card-table." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In your own room at Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What was the name of the gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't know." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How long had you known him?" + +WITNESS.--"Only that night." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where had you met him?" + +WITNESS.--"At the Alhambra." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Had you seen him before that time?" + +WITNESS.--"Not to speak to." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Meeting him at the Alhambra, did he accompany you to +Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, to play cards." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Not to accuse him, when there, of attempting to indecently +handle you?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was Burton there?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Anyone else?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't think so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was the gentleman sober?" + +WITNESS.--"Oh, yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What room did you go into?" + +WITNESS.--"The sitting-room." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who called the police?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't know." + +Sir EDWARD.--"The landlady, perhaps?" + +WITNESS.--"I believe she did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did the landlady give you and Burton into custody?" + +WITNESS.--"No; nobody did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Some person must have done. Who did?" + +WITNESS.--"All I can say is, I did not hear anybody." + +Sir EDWARD.--"At any rate you were taken to Rochester Road, and the +gentleman went with you?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Police Constable 396 A was here called into court and took up a position +close to the witness-box. He gazed curiously at Atkins, who wriggled about +and eyed him uneasily. + +Sir EDWARD.--"Now I ask you in the presence of this officer, was the +statement made at the police-station that you and the gentleman had been +in bed together?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't think so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Think before you speak; it will be better for you. Did not +the landlady actually come into the room and see you and the gentleman +naked on or in the bed together?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't remember that she did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You may as well tell me about it. You know. Was that +statement made?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, yes it was." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You had endeavoured to force money out of this gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"I asked him for some money." + +Sir EDWARD.--"At the police-station the gentleman refused to prosecute?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"So you and Burton were liberated?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"About two hours ago, Atkins, I asked you these very +questions and you swore upon your oath that you had not been in custody at +all, and had never been taken to Rochester Road Police Station. How came +you to tell me those lies?" + +WITNESS.--"I did not remember it." + +Atkins looked somewhat crestfallen and abashed. Yet some of his former +brazen impudence still gleamed upon his now scarlet face. He heaved a deep +sigh of relief when told to leave the court by the judge, who pointed +sternly to the doorway. + +Of all the creatures associated with Wilde in these affairs, this Atkins +was the lowest and most contemptible. For some years he had been in the +habit of blackmailing men whom he knew to be inclined to perverted sexual +vices, and his was a well-known figure up West. He constantly frequented +the promenades of the music-halls. He "made up" his eyes and lips, wore +corsets and affected an effeminate air. He was an infallible judge of the +class of man he wished to meet and rarely made a mistake. He would follow +a likely subject about, stumble against him as though by accident and make +an elaborate apology in mincing, female tones. Once in conversation with +his "mark," he speedily contrived to make the latter aware that he did not +object to certain proposals. He invariably permitted the beastly act +before attempting blackmail, partly because it afforded him a stronger +hold over his "victim" and partly because he rejoiced in the disgusting +thing for its own sake. He was the butt of the ladies of the pavement +round Piccadilly Circus, who used to shout after him, enquire +sarcastically "if he had got off last night," and if his "toff hadn't +bilked him." He would affect to laugh and pass the thing off with a joke; +but, to his intimates, he assumed a great loathing for women of this +class, whom he appeared to regard as dangerous obstacles to the exercise +of his own foul trade. On several occasions he was assaulted by these +women. + +To return to the Trial of Wilde and Taylor. As soon as the enquiry was +resumed, Mr. Charles Mathews went down into the cells and had an +interview with the prisoner Wilde, and on his return entered into serious +consultation with his leader, Sir Edward Clarke. In the meanwhile, Taylor +conversed with his counsel, Mr. Grain, across the rail of the dock. It was +felt that an important announcement bearing on the conduct of the case was +likely to be made. It came from Mr. Gill, representing the prosecution. + +As soon as Mr. Justice Charles had taken his seat, the prosecuting counsel +rose and said that having considered the indictment, he had decided not to +ask for a verdict in the two counts charging the prisoners with +conspiracy. Subdued expressions of surprise were audible from the public +gallery when Mr. Gill delivered himself of this dramatic announcement, and +the sensation was strengthened a little later when Sir Edward Clarke +informed the jury that both the prisoners desired to give evidence and +would be called as witnesses. These matters having been determined upon, +Sir Edward Clarke rose and proceeded to make some severe criticisms upon +the conduct of the prosecution in what he referred to as the literary part +of the case. Hidden meanings, he said, had been most unjustly "read" into +the poetical and prose works of his client and it seemed that an +endeavour, though a futile one, was to be made to convict Mr. Wilde +because of a prurient construction which had been placed by his enemies +upon certain of his works. He alluded particularly to "Dorian Gray," which +was an allegory, pure and simple. According to the rather musty and +far-fetched notions of the prosecution, it was an impure and simple +allegory, but Wilde could not fairly be judged, he said, by the standards +of other men, for he was a literary eccentric, though intellectually a +giant, and he did not profess to be guided by the same sentiments as +animated other and less highly-endowed men. He then called Mr. Wilde. The +prisoner rose with seeming alacrity from his place in the dock, walked +with a firm tread and dignified demeanour to the witness-box, and leaning +across the rail in the same easy and not ungraceful attitude that he +assumed when examined by Mr. Carson in the libel action, prepared to +answer the questions addressed to him by his counsel. Wilde was first +interrogated as to his previous career. In the year 1884, he had married a +Miss Lloyd, and from that time to the present he had continued to live +with his wife at 16, Tite Street, Chelsea. He also occupied rooms in St. +James's Place, which were rented for the purposes of his literary labours, +as it was quite impossible to secure quiet and mental repose at his own +house, when his two young sons were at home. He had heard the evidence in +this case against himself, and asserted that there was no shadow of a +foundation for the charges of indecent behaviour alleged against himself. + +Mr. Gill then rose to cross-examine and the Court at once became on the +_qui vive_. Wilde seemed perfectly calm and did not change his attitude, +or tone of polite deprecation. + +Mr. GILL.--"You are acquainted with a publication entitled 'The +Chameleon'?" + +WITNESS.--"Very well indeed." + +Mr. GILL.--"Contributors to that journal are friends of yours?" + +WITNESS.--"That is so." + +Mr. GILL.--"I believe that Lord Alfred Douglas was a frequent +contributor?" + +WITNESS.--"Hardly that, I think. He wrote some verses occasionally for the +'Chameleon,' and, indeed, for other papers." + +Mr. GILL.--"The poems in question were somewhat peculiar?" + +WITNESS.--"They certainly were not mere commonplaces like so much that is +labelled poetry." + +Mr. GILL.--"The tone of them met with your critical approval?" + +WITNESS.--"It was not for me to approve or disapprove. I leave that to the +Reviews." + +Mr. GILL.--"At the trial Queensberry and Wilde you described them as +'beautiful poems'?" + +WITNESS.--"I said something tantamount to that. The verses were original +in theme and construction, and I admired them." + +Mr. GILL.--"In one of the sonnets by Lord A. Douglas a peculiar use is +made of the word 'shame'?" + +WITNESS.--"I have noticed the line you refer to." + +Mr. GILL.--"What significance would you attach to the use of that word in +connection with the idea of the poem?" + +WITNESS.--"I can hardly take it upon myself to explain the thoughts of +another man." + +Mr. GILL.--"You were remarkably friendly with the author? Perhaps he +vouchsafed you an explanation?" + +WITNESS.--"On one occasion he did." + +Mr. GILL.--"I should like to hear it." + +WITNESS.--"Lord Alfred explained that the word 'shame' was used in the +sense of modesty, _i. e._ to feel shame or not to feel shame." + +Mr. GILL.--"You can, perhaps, understand that such verses as these would +not be acceptable to the reader with an ordinarily balanced mind?" + +WITNESS.--"I am not prepared to say. It appears to me to be a question of +taste, temperament and individuality. I should say that one man's poetry +is another man's poison!" (Loud laughter.) + +Mr. GILL.--"I daresay! There is another sonnet. What construction can be +put on the line, 'I am the love that dare not speak its name'?" + +WITNESS.--"I think the writer's meaning is quite unambiguous. The love he +alluded to was that between an elder and younger man, as between David and +Jonathan; such love as Plato made the basis of his philosophy; such as was +sung in the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michael Angelo; that deep spiritual +affection that was as pure as it was perfect. It pervaded great works of +art like those of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. Such as 'passeth the +love of woman.' It was beautiful, it was pure, it was noble, it was +intellectual--this love of an elder man with his experience of life, and +the younger with all the joy and hope of life before him." + +The witness made this speech with great emphasis and some signs of +emotion, and there came from the gallery, at its conclusion, a medley of +applause and hisses which his lordship at once ordered to be suppressed. + +Mr. GILL.--"I wish to call your attention to the style of your +correspondence with Lord A. Douglas." + +WITNESS.--"I am ready. I am never ashamed of the style of any of my +writings." + +Mr. GILL.--"You are fortunate--or shall I say shameless? I refer to +passages in two letters in particular." + +WITNESS.--"Kindly quote them." + +Mr. GILL.--"In letter number one. You use this expression: 'Your slim gilt +soul,' and you refer to Lord Alfred's "rose-leaf lips." + +WITNESS.--"The letter is really a sort of prose sonnet in answer to an +acknowledgement of one I had received from Lord Alfred." + +Mr. GILL.--"Do you think that an ordinarily-constituted being would +address such expressions to a younger man?" + +WITNESS.--"I am not, happily, I think, an ordinarily constituted being." + +Mr. GILL.--"It is agreeable to be able to agree with you, Mr. Wilde." +(Laughter). + +WITNESS.--"There is, I assure you, nothing in either letter of which I +need be ashamed." + +Mr. GILL.--"You have heard the evidence of the lad Charles Parker?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"Of Atkins?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"Of Shelley?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"And these witnesses have, you say, lied throughout?" + +WITNESS.--"Their evidence as to my association with them, as to the +dinners taking place and the small presents I gave them, is mostly true. +But there is not a particle of truth in that part of the evidence which +alleged improper behaviour." + +Mr. GILL.--"Why did you take up with these youths?" + +WITNESS.--"I am a lover of youth." (Laughter). + +Mr. GILL.--"You exalt youth as a sort of God?" + +WITNESS.--"I like to study the young in everything. There is something +fascinating in youthfulness." + +Mr. GILL.--"So you would prefer puppies to dogs, and kittens to cats?" +(Laughter). + +WITNESS.--"I think so. I should enjoy, for instance, the society of a +beardless, briefless, barrister quite as much as that of the most +accomplished Q. C." (Loud laughter). + +Mr. GILL.--"I hope the former, whom I represent in large numbers, will +appreciate the compliment." (More laughter). "These youths were much +inferior to you in station?" + +WITNESS.--"I never enquired, nor did I care, what station they occupied. I +found them, for the most part, bright and entertaining. I found their +conversation a change. It acted as a kind of mental tonic." + +Mr. GILL.--"You saw nothing peculiar or suggestive in the arrangement of +Taylor's rooms?" + +WITNESS.--"I cannot say that I did. They were Bohemian. That is all. I +have seen stranger rooms." + +Mr. GILL.--"You never suspected the relations that might exist between +Taylor and his young friends?" + +WITNESS.--"I had no need to suspect anything. Taylor's relations with his +friends appeared to me to be quite normal." + +Mr. GILL.--"You have attended to the evidence of the witness Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"I have." + +Mr. GILL.--"Is it true or false?" + +WITNESS.--"It is mainly true, but false inferences have been drawn from it +as from most of the evidence. Truth may be found, I believe, at the bottom +of a well. It is, apparently difficult to find it in a court of law." +(Laughter.) + +Mr. GILL.--"Nevertheless we endeavour to extract it. Did the witness Mavor +write you expressing a wish to break off the acquaintance?" + +WITNESS.--"I received a rather unaccountable and impertinent letter from +him for which he afterwards expressed great regret." + +Mr. GILL.--"Why should he have written it if your conduct had altogether +been blameless?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not profess to be able to explain the motives of most of +the witnesses. Mavor may have been told some falsehood about me. His +father was greatly incensed at his conduct at this time, and, I believe, +attributed his son's erratic courses to his friendship with me. I do not +think Mavor altogether to blame. Pressure was brought to bear upon him +and he was not then quite right in his mind." + +Mr. GILL.--"You made handsome presents to these young fellows?" + +WITNESS.--"Pardon me, I differ. I gave two or three of them a +cigarette-case. Boys of that class smoke a good deal of cigarettes. I have +a weakness for presenting my acquitances with cigarette-cases." + +Mr. GILL.--"Rather an expensive habit if indulged in indiscriminately." + +WITNESS.--"Less extravagant than giving jewelled-garters to ladies." +(Laughter). + +When a few more unimportant questions had been asked, Wilde left the +witness-box, returning to the dock with the same air of what may be +described as serious easiness. The impression created by his replies was +not, upon the whole, favorable to his cause. + +His place was taken by the prisoner Taylor. He said that he was +thirty-three years of age and was educated at Marlborough. When he was +twenty-one he came into £45,000. In a few years he ran through this +fortune, and at about the time he went to Chapel Street, he was made a +bankrupt. The charges made against him of misconduct were entirely +unfounded. He was asked point-blank if he had not been given to sodomy +from his early youth, and if he had not been expelled from a public-school +for being caught in a compromising situation with a small boy in the +lavatory. Taylor was also asked if he had not actually obtained a living +since his bankruptcy by procuring lads and young men for rich gentlemen +whom he knew to be given to this vice. He was also asked if he had not +extracted large sums of money from wealthy men by threatening to accuse +them of immoralities. To all these plain questions he returned in direct +answer, "No." + +After the luncheon interval, Sir Edward Clark rose to address the jury in +defence of Oscar Wilde. He began by carefully analysing the evidence. He +declared that the wretches who had come forward to admit their own +disgrace were shameless creatures incapable of one manly thought or one +manly action. They were, without exception, blackmailers. They lived by +luring men to their rooms, generally, on the pretence that a beautiful +girl would be provided for them on their arrival. Once in their clutches, +these victims could only get away by paying a large sum of money unless +they were prepared to face and deny the most disgraceful charges. Innocent +men constantly paid rather than face the odium attached to the breath even +of such scandals. They had, moreover, wives and children, daughters, +maybe or a sister whose honour or name they were obliged to consider. +Therefore they usually submitted to be fleeced and in this way, this +wretched Wood and the abject Atkins had been able to go about the West-end +well-fed and well-dressed. These youths had been introduced to Wilde. They +were pleasant-spoken enough and outwardly decent in their language and +conduct. Wilde was taken in by them and permitted himself to enjoy their +society. He did not defend Wilde for this; he had unquestionably shown +imprudence, but a man of his temperament could not be judged by the +standards of the average individual. These youths had come forward to make +these charges in a conspiracy to ruin his client. + +Was it likely, he asked, that a man of Wilde's cleverness would put +himself so completely in the power of these harpies as he would be if +guilty of only a tenth of the enormities they alleged against him? If +Wilde practised these acts so openly and so flagrantly--if he allowed the +facts to come to the knowledge of so many--then he was a fool who was not +fit to be at large. If the evidence was to be credited, these acts of +gross indecency which culminated in actual crime were done in so open a +manner as to compel the attention of landladies and housemaids. He was +not himself--and he thanked Heaven for it--versed in the acts of those who +committed these crimes against nature. He did not know under what +circumstances they could be practised. But he believed that this was a +vice which, because of the horror and repulsion it excited, because of the +fury it provoked against those guilty of it, was conducted with the utmost +possible secrecy. He respectfully submitted that no jury could find a man +guilty on the evidence of these tainted witnesses. + +Take the testimony, he said, of Atkins. This young man had denied that he +had ever been charged at a police station with alleging blackmail. Yet he +was able to prove that he had grossly perjured himself in this and other +directions. That was a sample of the evidence and Atkins was a type of the +witnesses. + +The only one of these youths who had ever attempted to get a decent living +or who was not an experienced blackmailer was Mavor, and he had denied +that Wilde had ever been guilty of any impropriety with him. + +The prosecution had sought to make capital out of two letters written by +Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas. He pointed out a fact which was of +considerable importance, namely, that Wilde had produced one of these +letters himself. Was that the act of a man who had reason to fear the +contents of a letter being known? Wilde never made any secret of visiting +Taylor's rooms. He found there society which afforded him variety and +change. Wilde made no secret of giving dinners to some of the witnesses. +He thought that they were poorly off and that a good dinner at a +restaurant did not often come their way. On only one occasion did he hire +a private room. The dinners were perfectly open and above-board. Wilde was +an extraordinary man and he had written letters which might seem +high-flown, extravagant, exaggerated, absurd if they liked; but he was not +afraid or ashamed to produce these letters. The witnesses Charles Parker, +Alfred Wood and Atkins had been proved to have previously been guilty of +blackmailing of this kind and upon their uncorroborated evidence surely +the jury would not convict the prisoner on such terrible charges. + +"Fix your minds," concluded Sir Edward earnestly, "firmly on the tests +that ought to be applied to the evidence as a whole before you can condemn +a fellow-man to a charge like this. Remember all that this charge implied, +of implacable ruin and inevitable disgrace. Then I trust that the result +of your deliberations will be to gratify those thousand hopes that are +waiting upon your verdict. I trust that verdict will clear from this +fearful imputation one of the most accomplished and renowned +men-of-letters of to-day." + +At the end of this peroration, there was some slight applause at the back +of the court, but it was hushed almost at once. Wilde had paid great +attention to the speech on his behalf and on one or two occasions had +pressed his hands to his eyes as if expressing some not unnatural emotion. +The speech concluded, however, he resumed his customary attitude and +awaited with apparent firmness all that might befall. + +Mr. Grain then rose to address the jury on behalf of Taylor. He submitted +that there was really no case against his client. An endeavour had been +made to prove that Taylor was in the habit of introducing to Wilde youths +whom he knew to be amenable to the practices of the latter and that he got +paid for this degrading work. The attempt to establish this disgusting +association between Taylor and Wilde had completely broken down. He was, +it is true, acquainted with Parker, Wood and Atkins. He had seen them +constantly in restaurants and music-halls, and they had at first forced +themselves upon his notice and thus got acquainted with a man whom they +designed for blackmail. All the resources of the Crown had been unable to +produce any corroboration of the charges made by these witnesses. How had +Taylor got his livelihood, it might be asked? He was perfectly prepared to +answer the question. He had been living on an allowance made him by +members of his late father's firm, a firm with which all there present +were familiar. Was it in the least degree likely that such scenes as the +witnesses described, with such apparent candour and such wealth of filthy +detail, could have taken place in Taylor's own apartments? It was +incredible that a man could thus risk almost certain discovery. In +conclusion, he confidently looked for the acquittal of his client, who was +guilty of nothing more than having made imprudent acquaintances and having +trusted too much to the descriptions of themselves given by others. + +Mr. Gill then replied for the prosecution in a closely-reasoned and most +able speech, which occupied two hours in delivery and which created an +enormous impression in the crowded court. He commented at great length +upon the evidence. He contended that in a case of this description +corroboration was of comparatively minor importance, for it was not in the +least likely that acts of the kind alleged would be practised before a +third party who might afterwards swear to the fact. Therefore, when the +witnesses described what had transpired when they and the prisoners were +alone, he did not think that corroboration could possibly be given. There +was not likely to be an eye-witness of the facts. But in respect to many +things he declared the evidence was corroborated. Whatever the character +of these youths might be, they had given evidence as to certain facts and +no cross-examination, however adroit, however vigorous, had shaken their +testimony, or caused them to waver about that which was evidently firmly +implanted in their memories. A man might conceivably come forward and +commit perjury. But these youths were accusing themselves, in accusing +another, of shameful and infamous acts, and this they would hardly do if +it were not the truth. Wilde had made presents to these youths and it was +noticeable that the gifts were invariably made after he had been alone, at +some rooms or other, with one or another of the lads. In the +circumstances, even a silver cigarette-case was corroboration. His learned +friend had protested against any evil construction being placed upon these +gifts and these dinners; but, in the name of common-sense, what other +construction was possible? When they heard of a man like Wilde, +presumably of refined and cultured tastes, who might if he wished, enjoy +the society of the best and most cultivated men and women in London, +accompanying to Nice and other places on the Continent, uninformed, +unintellectual and vulgar, ill-bred youths of the type of Charles Parker, +then, in Heaven's name what were they to think? All those visits, all +those dinners, all those gifts, were corroboration. They served to confirm +the truth of the statements made by the youths who confessed to the +commission of acts for which the things he had quoted were positive and +actual payment. + +In the case of the witness Sidney Mavor, it was clear that Wilde had, in +some way, continued to disgust this youth. Some acts of Wilde, either +towards himself, or towards others, had offended him. Was not the letter +which Mavor had addressed to the prisoner, desiring the cessation of their +friendship, corrobation? + +(At this moment his Lordship interposed, and said that although the +evidence of this witness was clearly of importance, he had denied that he +had been guilty of impropriety, and he did not think the count in +reference to Mavor could stand. After some discussion this count was +struck out of the indictment). + +Before concluding Mr. Gill stated that he had withdrawn the conspiracy +count to prevent any embarrassment to Sir Edward Clarke, who had +complained that he was affected in his defence by the counts being joined. +Mr. Gill said, in conclusion, that it was the duty of the jury to express +their verdict without fear or favour. They owed a duty to Society, however +sorry they might feel themselves at the moral downfall of an eminent man, +to protect Society from such scandals by removing from its heart a sore +which could not fail in time to corrupt and taint it all. + +Mr. Justice Charles then commenced his summing-up. His lordship at the +outset said he thought Mr. Gill had taken a wise course in withdrawing the +conspiracy counts and thus relieving them all of an embarrassing position. +He did not see why the conspiracy counts need have been inserted at all, +and he should direct the jury to return a verdict of acquittal on those +charges as well as upon one other count against Taylor, to which he would +further allude, and upon which no sufficient evidence had been given. + +He, the learned judge, asked the jury to apply their minds solely to the +evidence which had been given. Any pre-conceived notion which they might +have formed from reading about the case he urged them to dismiss from +their minds, and to deal with the case as it had been presented to them by +the witnesses. + +His Lordship went on to ask the jury not to attach too much importance to +the uncorroborated evidence of accomplices in such cases as these. Had +there been no corroboration in this case it would have been his duty to +instruct the jury accordingly; but he was clearly of opinion that there +was corroboration to all the witnesses; not, it is true, the conspiracy +testimony of eye-witnesses, but corroboration of the narrative generally. + +Three of the witnesses, Chas. Parker, Wood and Atkins, were not only +accomplices, but they had been properly described by Sir Edward Clarke as +persons of bad character. Atkins, out of his own mouth, was convicted of +having told the most gross and deliberate falsehoods. The jury knew how +this matter came before them as the outcome of the trial of Lord +Queensberry for alleged libel. + +The learned judge proceeded to outline the features of the Queensberry +trial, commenting most upon what was called the literary part of Wilde's +examination in that case. The judge said that he had not read "Dorian +Gray", but extracts were read at the former trial and the present jury had +a general idea of the story. He did not think they ought to base any +unfavourable inference upon the fact that Wilde was the author of that +work. It would not be fair to do so, for while it was true that there were +many great writers, such for instance as Sir Walter Scott and Charles +Dickens, who never penned an offensive line, there were other great +authors whose pens dealt with subjects not so innocent. + +As for Wilde's aphorisms in the "Chameleon", some were amusing, some were +cynical, and some were, if he might be allowed to say so, simple, but +there was nothing _in per se_, to convict Wilde of indecent practices. +However, the same paper contained a very indecent contribution; "The +Priest and the Acolyte." Mr. Wilde had nothing to do with that. In the +"Chameleon" also appeared two poems by Lord Alfred Douglas, one called "In +Praise of Shame", and the other called "Two Loves." It was said that these +sonnets had an immoral tendency and that Wilde approved them. He was +examined at great length about these sonnets, and was also asked about the +two letters written by him to Lord Alfred Douglas--letters that had been +written before the publication of the above mentioned poems. + +In the previous case Mr. Carson had insisted that these letters were +indecent. On the other hand, Wilde had told them that he was not ashamed +of them, as they were intended in the nature of prose poems and breathed +the pure love of one man for another, such a love as David had for +Jonathan, and such as Plato described as the beginning of wisdom. + +He would next deal with the actual charges, and would first call their +attention to the offence alleged to have been committed with Edward +Shelley at the beginning of 1892. Shelley was undoubtedly in the position +of an accomplice, but his evidence was corroborated. He was not, however, +tainted with the offences with which Parker, Wood and Atkins were +connected. He seemed to be a person of some education and a fondness for +Literature. As to Shelley's visit to the Albemarle Hotel, the jury were +the best judges of the demeanour of the witness. Wilde denied all the +allegations of indecency though he admitted the other parts of the young +man's story. His Lordship called attention to the letters written by +Shelley to Wilde in 1892, 1893 and 1894. It was, he said, a very anxious +part of the jury's task to account for the tone of these letters, and for +Shelley's conduct generally. It became a question as to whether or no his +mind was disordered. He felt bound to say that though there was evidence +of great excitability, to talk of either Shelley or Mavor as an insane +youth was an exaggeration, but it would be for the jury to draw their own +conclusions. + +Passing to the case of Atkins, the judge drew attention to his meeting +with Taylor in November 1892, to the dinner at the Café Florence, at which +Wilde, Taylor, Atkins and Lord A. Douglas were present, and to the visit +of Atkins to Paris in company with Wilde. + +After dwelling on the circumstances of that visit, his lordship referred +to Wilde's two visits to Atkins in Osnaburgh Street in December 1893. +Wilde explained the Paris visit by saying that Schwabe had arranged to +take Atkins to Paris, but being unable to leave at the time appointed he +asked Wilde to take charge of the youth, and he did so out of friendship +for Schwabe. Wilde further denied that he was much in Atkins' company when +in Paris. Atkins certainly was an unreliable witness and had obviously +given an incorrect version of his relations with Burton. He told the +grossest falsehoods with regard to their arrest, and was convicted out of +his own mouth when recalled by Sir E. Clarke. It was for the jury to +decide how much of Atkins's evidence they might safely believe. + +Then there were the events described as having occured at the Savoy Hotel +in March 1892. He would ask the jury to be careful in the evidence of the +chamber-maid, Jane Cotter, and the interpretation they put upon it. If her +evidence and that of the Masseur Mijji, were true, then Wilde's evidence +on that part of the case was untrue, and the jury must use their own +discretion. He did not wish to enlarge upon this most unpleasant part of +the whole unpleasant case, but it was necessary to remind the jury as +discreetly as he could that the chamber-maid had objected to making the +bed on several occasions after Wilde and Atkins had been in the bed-room +alone together. There were, she had affirmed, indications on the sheets +that conduct of the grossest kind had been indulged in. He thought it his +duty to remind the jury that there might be an innocent explanation of +these stains, though the evidence of Jane Cotter certainly afforded a kind +of corroboration of these charges and of Atkins's own story. In reference +to the case of Wood, he contrasted Wood's account with that of Wilde. + +It seemed that Lord Alfred Douglas had met Wood at Taylor's rooms. In +response to a telegram from the former, Wood went to the Café Royal and +there met Wilde for the first time, Wilde speaking first. On the other +hand, Wilde represented that Wood spoke first. The jury might think that, +in any case, the circumstances of that meeting were remarkable, especially +when taken in conjunction with what followed. There was no doubt that Wood +had fallen into evil courses and he and Allen had extracted the sum of +£300 in blackmail. The interview between Wilde and Wood prior to the +latter's departure for America was remarkable. A sum of money, said to be +£30, was given by Wilde to Wood, and Wood returned some of Wilde's letters +that had somehow come into his possession. Wood, however, kept back one +letter which got into Allen's possession. Wood got £5 more on the +following day, went to America, and while there wrote to Taylor a letter +in which occured the passage. "Tell Oscar if he likes he can send me a +draft for an Easter Egg." It would be for the jury to consider what would +have been the inner meaning of these and other transactions. + +As to the prisoner Taylor, he had, on his own admission, led a life of +idleness, and got through a fortune of £45,000. It was alleged that the +prisoner had virtually turned his apartments into a bagnio or brothel, in +which young men took the place of prostitutes, and that his character in +this regard was well known to those who were secretly given to this +particular vice. One of the offences imputed to Taylor had reference to +Charles Parker, who had spoken of the peculiar arrangement of the rooms. +There were two bedrooms in the inner room with folding doors between and +the windows were heavily draped, so that no one from the opposite houses +could possibly see what was going on inside. Heavy curtains, it was said, +hung before all the doors, so that it could not be possible for an +eave's-dropper to hear what was proceeding inside. There was a curiously +shaped sofa in the sitting-room and the whole aspect of the room +resembled, it was asserted, a fashionable resort for vice. + +Wilde was undoubtedly present at some of the tea parties given there, and +did not profess to be surprised at what he saw there. It had been shown +that both the Parkers went to these rooms, and further, that Charles +Parker had received £30 of the blackmail extorted by Wood and Allen. + +Charles Parker's evidence was therefore doubly-tainted like that of Wood +and Atkins, but his evidence was to some extent confirmed by that of his +brother William. Some parts of Charles Parker's evidence were also +corroborated by other witnesses, as for instance, by Marjorie Bancroft, +who swore that she saw Wilde visit Charles Parker's rooms in Park Walk. + +It was admitted that this Parker visited Wilde at St. James' Place. +Charles Parker had been arrested with Taylor in the Fitzroy Square raid +and this went to show that they were in the habit of associating with +those suspected of offences of the kind alleged. Both, however, were on +that occasion discharged and Parker enlisted in the army. It was quite +manifest that Charles Parker was of a low class of morality. + +That concluded the various charges made in this case and he had very +little to add. Mavor's evidence had little or no value with reference to +the issues now before the jury, except as showing how he became acquainted +with Wilde and Taylor. So far as it went, Mavor's evidence was rather in +favour of Wilde than otherwise and nothing indecent had been proved +against that witness. + +In conclusion, his lordship submitted the case to the jury in the +confident hope that they would do justice to themselves on the one hand, +and to the two defendants on the other. The learned judge concluded by +further directing the jury as to the issues, and asked them to form their +opinions on the evidence, and to give the case their careful +consideration. + +The judge left the following questions to the jury:-- + +FIRST, whether Wilde committed certain offences with Shelley, Wood, with a +person or persons unknown at the Savoy Hotel, or with Charles Parker? + +SECONDLY, whether Taylor procured the commission of those acts or any of +them? + +THIRDLY, did Wilde or Taylor, or either of them attempt to get Atkins to +commit certain offences with Wilde, and FOURTHLY, did Taylor commit +certain acts with either Charles Parker or Wood? + +The Jury retired at 1.35, the summing-up of the judge having taken exactly +three hours. + +At three o'clock a communication was brought from the jury, and conveyed +by the Clerk of arraigns to the Judge, and shortly afterwards the jury had +luncheon taken in to them. + +At 4.15 the judge sent for the Clerk of arraigns, Mr. Avory, who proceeded +to his lordship's private room. + +Subsequently, Mr. Avory went to the jury, apparently with a communication +from the judge and returned in a few minutes to the judge's private room. + +Shortly before five o'clock the usher brought a telegram from one of the +jurors, and after it had been shown to the clerk of arraigns it was +allowed to be despatched. + +Eventually the jury returned into court at a quarter past five o'clock. + + +THE VERDICT + +THE JUDGE.--"I have received a communication from you to the effect that +you are unable to arrive at an agreement. Now, is there anything you +desire to ask me in reference to the case?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"I have put that question to my fellow-jurymen, my lord, and +I do not think there is any doubt that we cannot agree upon three of the +questions." + +THE JUDGE.--"I find from the entry which you have written against the +various subdivisions of No. 1 that you cannot agree as to any of those +subdivisions?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"That is so, my lord." + +THE JUDGE.--"Is there no prospect of an agreement if you retire to your +room?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"I fear not." + +THE JUDGE.--"You have not been inconvenienced; I ordered what you +required, and there is no prospect that, with a little more deliberation, +you may come to an agreement as to some of them?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"My fellow-jurymen say there is no possibility." + +THE JUDGE.--"I am very unwilling to prejudice your deliberations, and I +have no doubt that you have done your best to arrive at an agreement. On +the other hand I would point out to you that the inconveniences of a new +trial are very great. If you thought that by deliberating a reasonable +time you could arrive at a conclusion upon any of the questions I have +asked you, I would ask you to do so." + +THE FOREMAN.--"We considered the matter before coming into court and I do +not think there is any chance of agreement. We have considered it again +and again." + +THE JUDGE.--"If you tell me that, I do not think I am justified in +detaining you any longer." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"I wish to ask, my lord, that a verdict may be given +in the conspiracy counts." + +Mr. GILL.--"I wish to oppose that." + +THE JUDGE.--"I directed the acquittal of the prisoners on the conspiracy +counts this morning. I thought that was the right course to adopt, and the +same remark might be made with regard to the two counts in which Taylor +was charged with improper conduct towards Wood and Parker. It was +unfortunate that the real and material questions which had occupied the +jury's attention for such a length of time were matters upon which the +jury were unable to agree. Upon these matters and upon the counts which +were concerned with them, I must discharge the jury." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"I wish to apply for bail, then for M. Wilde." + +Mr. HALL.--"And I make the same application on behalf of Taylor." + +THE JUDGE.--"I don't feel able to accede to the applications." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I shall probably renew the application, my lord." + +THE JUDGE.--"That would be to a judge in chambers." + +Mr. GILL.--"The case will assuredly be tried again and probably it will go +to the next Sessions." + +The two prisoners, who had listened to all this very attentively, were +then conducted from the dock. Wilde had listened to the foreman of the +jury's statement without any show of feeling. + +It was stated that the failure of the jury to agree upon a verdict was +owing to three out of the twelve being unable upon the evidence placed +before them to arrive at any other conclusion than that of "Not Guilty." + +The following day Mr. Baron Pollock decided that Oscar Wilde should be +allowed out on bail in his own recognisances of £2,500 and two sureties of +£1,250 each. Wilde was brought up at Bow Street next day and the sureties +attended. After a further application, bail in his case was granted and he +went out of prison, for the present a free man, but with NEMESIS, in the +shape of the second trial, awaiting him! + + * * * * * + +The second trial of Oscar Wilde, with its dramatic finale, for no one +thought much of its consequences to Alfred Taylor, came on in the third +week of May at the Old Bailey. + +It was agreed to take the cases of the prisoners separately, Taylor's +first. Sir Edward Clarke, who still represented Wilde, stated that he +should make an application at the end of Taylor's trial that Wilde's case +should stand over till the next sessions. His lordship said that +application had better be postponed till the end of the first trial, +significantly adding, "If there should be an acquittal, so much the better +for the other prisoner." Meanwhile Wilde was to be released on bail. + +Sir Francis Lockwood, who now represented the prosecution, then went over +all the details of the intimacy of the Parkers and Wood with Taylor and +Wilde and called Charles Parker, who repeated his former evidence, +including a very serious allegation against the prisoner. He stated in so +many words that Taylor had kept him at his rooms for a whole week during +which time they rarely went out, and had repeatedly committed sodomy with +him. The witness unblushingly asserted that they slept together and that +Taylor called him "Darling" and referred to him as "my little Wife." When +he left Taylor's rooms the latter paid him some money, said he should +never want for cash and that he would introduce him to men "prepared to +pay for that kind of thing." Cross-examined; Charles Parker admitted that +he had previously been guilty of this offence, but had determined never to +submit to such treatment again. Taylor over-persuaded him. He was nearly +drunk and incapable, the first time, of making a moral resistance. + +Alfred Wood also described his acquaintance with Taylor and his visits to +what he termed the "snuggery" at Little College Street, but which quite as +appropriately could have been designed by a name which would have the +additional merit of strictly describing it and of rhyming with it at the +same time! It was not at all clear, however, that Taylor was responsible, +at least directly, for the introduction of Alfred Wood to Wilde as the +indictment suggested. This was effected by a third person, whose name had +not as yet been introduced into the case. + +Mrs. Grant, the landlady at 13 Little College Street, described Taylor's +rooms. She was not aware, she said, that they were put to an improper use, +but she had remarked to her husband the care taken that whatever went on +there should be hidden from the eyes and ears of others. Young men used to +come there and remain some time with Taylor, and Wilde was a frequent +visitor. Taylor provided much of his own bed-linen and she noticed that +the pillows had lace and were generally elaborate and costly. + +The prosecution next called a new witness, Emily Becca, chambermaid at +the Savoy Hotel, who stated that she had complained to the management of +the state in which she found the bed-linen and the utensils of the room. +When pressed for particulars the witness hesitated, and after stating that +she refused to make the bed or empty the "chamber," she said she handed in +her notice but was prevailed upon to withdraw it. Then by a series of +adroit questions Counsel obtained the particulars. The bed-linen was +stained. The colour was brown. The towels were similarly discoloured. One +of the pillows was marked with face-powder. There was excrement in one of +the utensils in the bedroom. Wilde had handed her half a sovereign but +when she saw the state of the room after he had gone she gave the coin to +the management. + +Evidence with regard to Wilde's rooms at St. James' Place was given by +Thomas Price, who was able to identify Taylor as one of the callers. + +Mrs. Gray--no relation, haply, to the notorious "Dorian"--of 3 Chapel +Street, Chelsea, deposed that Taylor stayed at her house from August 1893 +to the end of that year. Formal and minor items of evidence concluded the +case for the prosecution of Taylor, and Mr. Grain proceeded to open his +defence by calling the prisoner into the witness-box. Mr. Grain examined +him. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What is your age?" + +WITNESS.--"I am thirty-three." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You are the son of the late Henry Taylor, who was a +manufacturer of an article of food in large demand?" + +WITNESS.--"I am." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You were at Marlborough School?" + +WITNESS.--"Till I was seventeen." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You inherited £45,000 I believe?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"And spent it?" + +WITNESS.--"It went." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Since then you have had no occupation?" + +WITNESS.--"I have lived upon an allowance made me." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Is there any truth in the evidence of Charles Parker that you +misconducted yourself with him." + +WITNESS.--"Not the slightest." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What rooms had you at Little College Street?" + +WITNESS.--"One bedroom, but it was sub-divided and I believe there was +generally a bed in each division." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You had a good many visitors?" + +WITNESS.--"Oh, yes." + +Sir FRANK LOCKWOOD.--"Did Charles Mavor stay with you then?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, about a week." + +Sir FRANK.--"When?" + +WITNESS.--"When I first went there, in 1892." + +Sir FRANK.--"What is his age?" + +WITNESS.--"He is now 26 or 27." + +Sir FRANK.--"Do you remember going through a form of marriage with Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"No, never." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you tell Parker you did?" + +WITNESS.--"Nothing of the kind." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you not place a wedding-ring on his finger and go to bed +with him that night as though he were your lawful wife?" + +WITNESS.--"It is all false. I deny it all." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you ever sleep with Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"I think I did the first night--after, he had a separate bed." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you induce Mavor to attire himself as a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"Certainly I did not." + +Sir FRANK.--"But there were articles of women's dress at your rooms?" + +WITNESS.--"No. There was a fancy dress for a female, a theatrical +costume." + +Sir FRANK.--"Was it made for a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"I think so." + +Sir FRANK.--"Perhaps you wore it?" + +WITNESS.--"I put it on once by way of a lark." + +Sir FRANK.--"On no other occasion?" + +WITNESS.--"I wore it once, too, at a fancy dress ball." + +Sir FRANK.--"I suggest that you often dressed as a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir FRANK.--"You wore, and caused Mavor afterwards, to wear lace +drawers--a woman's garment--with the dress?" + +WITNESS.--"I wore knicker-bockers and stockings when I wore it at the +fancy dress ball." + +Sir FRANK.--"And a woman's wig, which afterwards did for Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"No, the wig was made for me. I was going to a fancy-ball as +'Dick Whittington'." + +Sir FRANK.--"Who introduced you to the Parkers?" + +WITNESS.--"A friend named Harrington at the St. James's Restaurant." + +Sir FRANK.--"You invited them to your rooms?" + +WITNESS.--"I did." + +Sir FRANK.--"Why?" + +WITNESS.--"I found them very nice." + +Sir FRANK.--"You were acquainted with a young fellow named Mason?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir FRANK.--"He visited you?" + +WITNESS.--"Two or three times only, I think." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you induce him to commit a filthy act with you?" + +WITNESS.--"Never." + +Sir FRANK.--"He has written you letters?" + +WITNESS.--"That's very likely." + +Sir FRANK.--"The Solicitor General proposes to read one." + +The letter was as follows:-- + + "Dear Alf, + + Let me have some money as soon as you can. I would not ask you for it + if I could get any myself. You know the business is not so easy. There + is a lot of trouble attached to it. + + Come home soon, dear, and let us go out together sometimes. Have very + little news. Going to a dinner on Monday and a theatre to-night. + + With much love, + Yours always, + CHARLES." + +The SOLICITOR GENERAL.--(Severely) "I ask you, Taylor, for an explanation, +for it requires one, of the use of the words "come home soon, dear", as +between two men." + +TAYLOR.--(Laughing nervously) "I do not see anything in it." + +The SOLICITOR GENERAL.--"Nothing in it?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, I am not responsible for the expressions of another." + +The SOLICITOR GENERAL.--"You allowed yourself to be addressed in this +strain?" + +WITNESS.--"It's the way you read it." + +The summing-up followed and after a consultation of three-quarters of an +hour, the jury returned a verdict against Taylor on the indecency counts, +not agreeing, however, as to the charges of procuration. Sentence was +postponed, pending the result of the trial of Oscar Wilde, which began +next day. + + * * * * * + +Wilde had meanwhile been at large on bail. The one charge of "conspiring +with Alfred Taylor to procure" had been dropped, and the indictment of +misdemeanour alleged that the prisoner unlawfully committed various acts +with Charles Parker, Alfred Wood, Edward Shelley, and certain persons +unknown. + +The plea of "Not Guilty" was recorded. + +The case for the prosecution was opened by calling Edward Shelley, the +young man who had been employed by the Vigo Street publishers. Shelley +repeated the story of the beginning and the progress of his intimacy with +Wilde. It began, he said, in 1891; in March 1893, they quarrelled. The +witness had been subjected by the prisoner to attempts at improper +conduct. Oscar had, to be plain, on several occasions, placed his hand on +the private parts of the witness and sought to put his, witness's, hand in +the same indelicate position as regards Wilde's own person. Witness +resented these acts at the time; had told Wilde not to be 'a beast', and +the latter expressed his sorrow. "But I am so fond of you, Edward," he had +said. + +The Witness wrote Wilde that he would not see him again. He spoke in the +letter of these and other acts of impropriety and made use of the +expression, "I was entrapped." Witness explained to the court, "He knew I +admired him very much and he took advantage of me--of my admiration +and--well, I won't say innocence. I don't know what to call it." + +These are some of the letters which Shelley wrote to Wilde: + + October 27, 1892. + + Oscar: Will you be at home on Sunday evening next? I am most anxious + to see you. I would have called this evening, but I am suffering from + nervousness, the result of insomnia and am obliged to remain at home. + + I have longed to see you all through the week. I have much to tell + you. Do not think me forgetful in not coming before, because I shall + never forget your kindness, and am conscious that I can never + sufficiently express my thankfulness. + +Another letter ran: + + October 25, 1894. + + Oscar: I want to go away and rest somewhere--I think in Cornwall for + two weeks. I am determined to live a truly Christian life, and I + accept poverty as part of my religion, but I must have health. I have + so much to do for my mother. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"Now, Mr. Shelley, do you mean to tell the jury that +having in your mind, that this man had behaved disgracefully towards you, +you wrote that letter of October 27, 1892?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. Because after those few occurrences he treated me very +well. He seemed really sorry for what he had done." + +Sir EDWARD.--"He introduced you to his home?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, to his wife. I dined with them and he seemed to take a +real interest in me." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You have met Lord Alfred Douglas?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, at his rooms at the 'Varsity'." + +Sir EDWARD.--"He was kind to you?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. He gave me a suit of clothes while I was there." + +Sir EDWARD.--"And you found two letters in one of the pockets?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who from?" + +WITNESS.--"From Mr. Wilde to Lord Alfred." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How did they begin?" + +WITNESS.--"One was addressed, "Dear Alfred", and the other to "Dear +Bogie." + +SOLICITOR-GENERAL.--"When did you first meet Lord Alfred?" + +WITNESS.--"At Taylor's rooms in Little College Street." + +SOLICITOR-GENERAL.--"Then you visited him at the University?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +The Solicitor-General then proceeded to ask the witness as to the terms +upon which Wilde and Lord Alfred appeared to be; but this has been a +prohibited topic from first to last and was now successfully objected to. + +Charles Parker was called and he repeated his evidence at great length, +relating the most disgusting facts in a perfectly serene manner. He said +that Wilde invariably began his "campaign"--before arriving at the final +nameless act--with indecencies. He used to require the witness to do what +is vulgarly known as "tossing him off", explained Parker quite unabashed, +"and he would often do the same to me. He suggested two or three times +that I should permit him to insert "it" in my mouth, but I never allowed +that." He gave other details equally shocking. + +A few other witnesses were examined, and the rest of the day having been +spent in the reading over of the evidence, Sir Edward Clarke submitted +that in respect of certain counts of the indictment there was no evidence +to go to the jury. + +The Solicitor-General submitted that there was ample evidence to go to the +jury, who alone could decide as to whether or not it was worthy of belief. + +The Judge said he thought the point in respect to the Savoy Hotel incident +was just on the line, but he thought that the wiser and safer course was +to allow the count in respect of this matter to go to the jury. At the +same time, he felt justified, if the occasion should arise, in reserving +the point for the Court of Appeal. He was inclined to think it was a +matter, the responsibility of deciding which, rested with the jury. + +Sir Edward Clarke submitted next that there was no corroboration of the +evidence of this witness. The letters of Shelley pointed to the inference +that the latter might have been the victim of delusions, and, judging from +his conduct in the witness-box, he appeared to have a peculiar sort of +exaltation in and for himself. + +The Solicitor-General maintained that Shelley's evidence was corroborated +as far as it could possibly be. Of course, in a case of this kind there +was an enormous difficulty in producing corroboration of eye-witnesses to +the actual commission of the alleged act. + +The judge held that Shelley must be treated on the footing of an +accomplice. He adhered, after a most careful consideration of the point, +to his former view, that there was no corroboration of the nature required +by the Act to warrant conviction, and therefore he felt justified in +withdrawing that count from the jury. + +Sir Edward Clarke made the same submission in the case of Wood. + +The Solicitor General protested against any decision being given on these +questions other than by a verdict of the jury. In his opinion the case of +the man Wood could not be withheld from the jury. He submitted that there +was every element of strong corroboration of Wood's story, having regard +especially to the strange and suspicious circumstances under which Wilde +and Wood became acquainted. + +Sir Edward Clarke quoted from the summing-up of Mr. Justice Charles on the +last trial relative to the directions which he gave the jury in the law +respecting the corroboration of the evidence of an accomplice. + +The judge was of opinion that the count affecting Wood ought to go to the +jury, and he gave reasons why it ought not to be withheld. + +Sir Edward Clarke after a private passage of arms with the +Solicitor-General in respect to the need for corroborative evidence, then +began a brief, but able appeal to the jury on behalf of his client, after +which Wilde entered the witness-box. He formally denied the allegations +against him. Sir Frank Lockwood, in cross-examination: "Now, Mr. Wilde, I +should like you to tell me where Lord A. Douglas is now?" + +WITNESS.--"He is in Paris, at the Hotel des Deux Mondes." + +Sir FRANK.--"How long has he been there?" + +WITNESS.--"Three weeks." + +Sir FRANK.--"Have you been in communication with him?" + +WITNESS.--"Certainly. These charges are founded on sand. Our friendship is +founded on a rock. There has been no need to cancel our acquaintance." + +Sir FRANK.--"Was Lord Alfred in London at the time of the trial of the +Marquis of Queensberry?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, for about three weeks. He went abroad at my request before +the first trial on these counts came on." + +Sir FRANK.--"May we take it that the two letters from you to him were +samples of the kind you wrote him?" + +WITNESS.--"No. They were exceptional letters born of the two exceptional +letters he sent to me. It is possible, I assure you, to express poetry in +prose." + +Sir FRANK.--"I will read one of these prose-poem letters. Do you think +this line is decent, addressed to a young man? "Your rose-red lips which +are made for the music of song and the madness of kissing." + +WITNESS.--"It was like a sonnet of Shakespeare. It was a fantastic, +extravagant way of writing to a young man. It does not seem to be a +question of whether it is proper or not." + +Sir FRANK.--"I used the word decent." + +WITNESS.--"Decent, oh yes." + +Sir FRANK.--"Do you think you understand the word, Sir?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not see anything indecent in it, it was an attempt to +address in beautiful phraseology a young man who had much culture and +charm." + +Sir FRANK.--"How many times have you been in the College Street +'snuggery' of the man Taylor?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not think more than five or six times." + +Sir FRANK.--"Who did you meet there?" + +WITNESS.--"Sidney Mavor and Schwabe--I cannot remember any others. I have +not been there since I met Wood there." + +Sir FRANK.--"With regard to the Savoy Hotel Witnesses?" + +WITNESS.--"Their evidence is quite untrue." + +Sir FRANK.--"You deny that the bed-linen was marked in the way described?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not examine bed-linen when I arise. I am not a housemaid." + +Sir FRANK.--"Were the stains there, Sir?" + +WITNESS.--"If they were there, they were not caused in the way the +Prosecution most filthily suggests." + +Sir Edward Clarke, after a slight "breeze" with the Solicitor-General as +to the right to the last word to the jury, then addressed that devoted +band of men for the third time, and asked for the acquittal of his client +on all the counts. + +Sir Frank Lockwood also addressed the jury and the Court then adjoined. + +Next day the Solicitor-General, resuming his speech on behalf of the Crown +dealt in details with the arguments of Sir E. Clarke in defence of Wilde, +and commented in strong terms on observations that he made respecting the +lofty situation of Wilde, with his literary accomplishments, for the +purpose of influencing the judgment of the young. He said that the jury +ought to discard absolutely any such appeal, to apply simply their +common-sense to the testimony; and to form a conclusion on the evidence, +which he submitted fully established the charges. + +He was commenting on another branch of the case, when Sir E. Clarke +interposed on the ground that the learned Solicitor-General was alluding +to incidents connected with another trial. The Solicitor-General +maintained that he was strictly within his rights, and the Judge held that +the latter was entitled to make the comments objected to. "My learned +friend does not appear to have gained a great deal by his superfluity of +interruption", remarked the Solicitor-General suavely, and the Court +laughed loudly. The Judge said that this sort of thing was most offensive +to him. It was painful enough to have to try such a case and keep the +scales of justice evenly balanced without the Court being pestered with +meaningless laughter and applause. If such conduct were repeated he would +have the Court cleared. + +The Solicitor-General then criticised the answers given by Wilde to the +charges, which explanations he submitted, were not worthy of belief. The +jury could not fail to put the interpretation on the conduct of the +accused that he was a guilty man and they ought to say so by their +verdict. + +The Judge, in summing-up, referred to the difficulties of the case in some +of its features. He regretted, that if the conspiracy counts were +unnecessary, or could not be established, they should have been placed in +the indictment. The jury must not surrender their own independent judgment +in dealing with the facts and ought to discard everything which was not +relevant to the issue before them, or did not assist their judgment. + +He did not desire to comment more than he could help about Lord Alfred +Douglas or the Marquis of Queensberry, but the whole of this lamentable +enquiry arose through the defendant's association with Lord A. Douglas. + +He did not think that the action of the Marquis of Queensberry in leaving +the card at the defendant's club, whatever motives he had, was that of a +gentleman. The jury were entitled to consider that these alleged acts +happened some years ago. They ought to be the best judges as to the +testimony of the witnesses and whether it was worthy of belief. + +The letters written by the accused to Lord A. Douglas were undoubtedly +open to suspicion, and they had an important bearing on Wood's evidence. +There was no corroboration of Wood as to the visit to Tite Street, and if +his story had been true, he thought that some corroboration might have +been obtained. Wood belonged to the vilest class of person which Society +was pestered with, and the jury ought not to believe his story unless +satisfactorily corroborated. + +Their decision must turn on the character of the first introduction of +Wilde to Wood. Did they believe that Wilde was actuated by charitable +motives or by improper motives? + +The foreman of the jury, interposing at this stage, asked whether a +warrant had been issued for the arrest of Lord Alfred Douglas and if not, +whether it was intended to issue one. + +The Judge said he could not tell, but he thought not. It was a matter they +could not now discuss. The granting of a warrant depended not upon the +inferences to be drawn from the letters referred to in the case, but on +the production of evidence of specific acts. There was a disadvantage in +speculating on this question. They must deal with the evidence before them +and with that alone. The foreman said, "If we are to deduce from the +letters it applies to Lord Alfred Douglas equally as to the defendant." + +THE JUDGE.--"In regard to the question as to the absence of Lord A. +Douglas, I warn you not to be influenced by any consideration of the kind. +All that they knew was that Lord A. Douglas went to Paris shortly after +the last trial and had remained there since. He felt sure that if the +circumstances justified it, the necessary proceedings could be taken." + +His lordship dealt with each of the charges, and the evidence in support +of them, and he then, after thanking the jury for the patient manner in +which they had attended to the case, left the issues in their hands. + +The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three o'clock and +at half past five they returned into Court. + + +_THE VERDICT_ + +Amidst breathless excitement, the Foreman, in answer to the usual formal +questions, announced the verdict, "Guilty." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"I apply, my lord, for a postponement of sentence." + +The JUDGE.--"I must certainly refuse that request. I can only characterise +the offences as the worst that have ever come under my notice. I have, +however, no wish to add to the pain that must be felt by the defendants. I +sentence both Wilde and Taylor to two years imprisonment with hard +labour." + +The sentence was met with some cries of "shame", "a scandalous verdict", +"unjust," by certain persons in Court. The two prisoners appeared dazed +and Wilde especially seemed ready to faint as he was hurried out of sight +to the cells. + + * * * * * + +Thus perished by his own act a man who might have made a lasting mark in +British Literature and secured for himself no mean place in the annals of +his time. + +He forfeited, in the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, if pleasures they +can be called, all and everything that made life dear. + +He entered upon his incarceration bankrupt in reputation, in friends, in +pocket, and had not even left to him the poor shreds of his own +self-esteem. + +He went into gaol, knowing that if he emerged alive, the darkness would +swallow him up and that his world--the spheres which had delighted to +honour him--would know him no more. + +He had covered his name with infamy and sank his own celebrity in a slough +of slime and filth. + +He would die to leave behind him what?--the name of a man who was +absolutely governed by his own vices and to whom no act of immorality was +too foul or horrible. + +Oscar Wilde emerged from prison in every way a broken man. The wonderful +descriptive force of the _Ballad of Reading Gaol_; the perfect, torturing +self-analysis of _De Profundis_ speak eloquently of powers unimpaired; but +they were the swan-songs of a once great mind. All his abilities had fled. +He seemed unable to concentrate his mind upon anything. He took up certain +subjects, played with them, and wearied of them in a day. French authors +did not ostracise the erratic English genius when he hid himself amongst +them and they honestly endeavoured to find him employment. But his +faculties had been blunted by the horrors of prison life. His epigrams had +lost their edge. His aphorisms were trite and aimless. He abandoned every +subject he took up, in despair. His mind died before his body. He suffered +from a complete mental atrophy. A nightingale cannot sing in a cage. A +genius cannot flourish in a prison. He died in two years and is now--the +merest memory! Let us remember this of him: if he sinned much, he suffered +much. + +Peace to his ashes! + + + + + HIS LAST BOOK + AND HIS LAST YEARS IN PARIS + _By_ "_A_" + (LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS?) + + +The following three articles, two of them from the "St. James's Gazette" +and one from the "Motorist", are marked with so much good sense and +dissipate so many errors touching Oscar Wilde's last Years in Paris that +the publisher deemed it a duty to reproduce them here as a permanent +answer to the wild legends circulated about the subject of this book. + + + + +OSCAR WILDE + +His last Book and his last Years + + +_The publication of Oscar Wilde's last book, "De Profundis," has revived +interest in the closing scenes of his life, and we to-day print the first +of two articles dealing with his last years in Paris from a source which +puts their authenticity beyond question._ + +_The one question which inevitably suggested itself to the reader of "De +Profundis," was, "What was the effect of his prison reflections on his +subsequent life?" The book is full not only of frank admissions of the +error of his ways, but of projects for his future activity. "I hope," he +wrote, in reply to some criticisms on the relations of art and morals, "to +live long enough to produce work of such a character that I shall be able +at the end of my days to say, "Yes, that is just where the artistic life +leads a man!" He mentions in particular two subjects on which he proposed +to write, "Christ as the Precursor of the Romantic Movement in Life" and +"The Artistic Life Considered in its Relation to Conduct." These +resolutions were never carried out, for reasons some of which the writer +of the following article indicates._ + +_Oscar Wilde was released from prison in May, 1897. He records in his +letters the joy of the thought that at that time "both the lilac and the +laburnum will be blooming in the gardens." The closing sentences of the +book may be recalled: "Society, as we have constituted it, will have no +place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on +unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and +secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the +night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without +stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me +to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs +make me whole."_ + +_He died in November, 1900, three years and a half after his release from +Reading Gaol._ + + * * * * * + +Monsieur Joseph Renaud, whose translation of Oscar Wilde's "Intentions" +has just appeared in Paris, has given a good example of how history is +made in his preface to that work. He recounts an obviously imaginary +meeting between himself and Oscar Wilde in a bar on the Boulevard des +Italiens. He concludes the episode, such as it is, with these words: +"Nothing remained of him but his musical voice and his large blue +childlike eyes." Oscar Wilde's eyes were curious--long, narrow, and green. +Anything less childlike it would be hard to imagine. To the physiognomist +they were his most remarkable feature, and redeemed his face from the +heaviness that in other respects characterised it. So much for M. Joseph +Renaud's powers of observation. + +The complacent unanimity with which the chroniclers of Oscar Wilde's last +years in Paris have accepted and spread the "legend" of his life in that +city is remarkable, and would be exasperating considering its utter +falsity to anyone who was not aware of their incompetence to deal with the +subject. Scarcely one of his self-constituted biographers had more than +the very slightest acquaintance with him, and their records and +impressions of him are chiefly made up of stale gossip and secondhand +anecdotes. The stories of his supposed privations, his frequent inability +to obtain a square meal, his lonely and tragic death in a sordid lodging, +and his cheap funeral are all grotesquely false. + +True, Oscar Wilde, who for several years before his conviction had been +making at least £5,000 a year, found it very hard to live on his rather +precarious income after he came out of prison; he was often very "hard +up," and often did not know where to turn for a coin, but I will +undertake to prove to anyone whom it may concern that from the day he left +prison till the day of his death his income averaged at least £400 a year. +He had, moreover, far too many devoted friends in Paris ever to be in need +of a meal provided he would take the trouble to walk a few hundred yards +or take a cab to one of half a dozen houses. His death certainly was +tragic--deaths are apt to be tragic--but he was surrounded by friends when +he died, and his funeral was not cheap; I happen to have paid for it in +conjunction with another friend of his, so I ought to know. + +He did not become a Roman Catholic before he died. He was, at the instance +of a great friend of his, himself a devout Catholic, "received into the +Church" a few hours before he died; but he had then been unconscious for +many hours, and he died without ever having any idea of the liberty that +had been taken with his unconscious body. Whether he would have approved +or not of the step taken by his friend is a matter on which I should not +like to express a too positive opinion, but it is certain that it would +not do him any harm, and, apart from all questions of religion and +sentiment, it facilitated the arrangements which had to be made for his +interment in a Catholic country, in view of the fact that no member of +his family took any steps to claim his body or arrange for his funeral. + +Having disposed of certain false impressions in regard to various facts of +his life and death in Paris, I may turn to what are less easily controlled +and examined theories as to that life. Without wishing to be paradoxical, +or harshly destructive of the carefully cherished sentiment of poetic +justice so dear to the British mind (and the French mind, too, for that +matter), I give it as my firm opinion that Oscar Wilde was, on the whole, +fairly happy during the last years of his life. He had an extraordinarily +buoyant and happy temperament, a splendid sense of humour, and an +unrivalled faculty for enjoyment of the present. Of course, he had his bad +moments, moments of depression and sense of loss and defeat, but they were +not of long duration. It was part of his pose to luxuriate a little in the +details of his tragic circumstances. He harrowed the feelings of many of +those whom he came across; words of woe poured from his lips; he painted +an image of himself, destitute, abandoned, starving even (I have heard him +use the word after a very good dinner at Paillard's); as he proceeded he +was caught by the pathos of his own words, his beautiful voice trembled +with emotion, his eyes swam with tears; and then, suddenly, by a swift, +indescribably brilliant, whimsical touch, a swallow-wing flash on the +waters of eloquence, the tone changed and rippled with laughter, bringing +with it his audience, relieved, delighted, and bubbling into +uncontrollable merriment. + +He never lost his marvellous gift of talking; after he came out of prison +he talked better than before. Everyone who knew him really before and +after his imprisonment is agreed about that. His conversation was richer, +more human, and generally on a higher intellectual level. In French he +talked as well as in English; to my own English ear his French used to +seem rather laboured and his accent too marked, but I am assured by +Frenchmen who heard him talk that such was not the effect produced on +them. + +He explained to me his inability to write, by saying that when he sat down +to write he always inevitably began to think of his past life, and that +this made him miserable and upset his spirits. As long as he talked and +sat in cafés and "watched life," as his phrase was, he was happy, and he +had the luck to be a good sleeper, so that only the silence and +self-communing necessary to literary work brought him visions of his +terrible sufferings in the past and made his old wounds bleed again. My +own theory as to his literary sterility at this period is that he was +essentially an interpreter of life, and that his existence in Paris was +too narrow and too limited to stir him to creation. At his best he +reflected life in a magic mirror, but the little corner of life he saw in +Paris was not worth reflecting. If he could have been provided with a +brilliant "entourage" of sympathetic listeners as of old and taken through +a gay season in London, he would have begun to write again. Curiously +enough, society was the breath of life to him, and what he felt more than +anything else in his "St. Helena" in Paris, as he often told me, was the +absence of the smart and pretty women who in the old days sat at his feet! + +A. + + + + +OSCAR WILDE'S + +LAST YEARS IN PARIS.--II + + +The French possess the faculty, very rare in England, of differentiating +between a man and his work. They are utterly incapable of judging literary +work by the moral character of its author. I have never yet met a +Frenchman who was able to comprehend the attitude of the English public +towards Oscar Wilde after his release from prison. They were completely +mystified by it. An eminent French man-of-letters said to me one day: "You +have a man of genius, he commits crimes, you put him in prison, you +destroy his whole life, you take away his fortune, you ruin his health, +you kill his mother, his wife, and his brother (_sic_), you refuse to +speak to him, you exile him from your country. That is very severe. In +France we should never so treat a man of genius, but _enfin ça peut se +comprendre_. But not content with that, you taboo his books and his plays, +which before you enjoyed and admired, and _pour comble de tout_ you are +very angry if he goes into a restaurant and orders himself some dinner. +_Il faut pourtant qu'il mange ce pauvre homme!_" If I had been +representing the British public in an official capacity I should have +probably given expression to its views and furnished a sufficient repartee +to my voluble French friend by replying: "_Je n'en vois pas la +nécessité_." + +Fortunately for Oscar Wilde, the French took another view of the attitude +to adopt towards a man who has offended against society, and who has been +punished for it. Never by a word or a hint did they show that they +remembered that offence, which, in their view, had been atoned for and +wiped out. Oscar Wilde remained for them always _un grand homme, un +maître_, a distinguished man, to be treated with deference and respect +and, because he had suffered much, with sympathy. It says a great deal for +the innate courtesy and chivalry of the French character that a man in +Oscar Wilde's position, as well known by sight, as he once remarked to me, +as the Eiffel Tower, should have been able to go freely about in theatres, +restaurants, and cafés without encountering any kind of hostility or even +impertinent curiosity. + +It was this benevolent attitude of Paris towards him that enabled him to +live and, in a fashion, to enjoy life. His audience was sadly reduced and +precarious, and except on some few occasions it was of inferior +intellectual calibre; but still he had an audience, and an audience to him +was everything. Nor was he altogether deprived of the society of men of +his own class and value. Many of the most brilliant young writers in +France were proud to sit at his feet and enjoy his brilliant conversation, +chief among whom I may mention that accomplished critic and essayist, +Monsieur Ernest Lajeunesse, who is the author of what is perhaps the best +posthumous notice of him that has been published in France in that +excellent magazine, the "Revue blanche"; among older men who kept up their +friendship with him, Octave Mirbeau, Moréas, Paul Fort, Henri Bauer, and +Jean Lorrain may be mentioned. + +In contrast to this attitude taken up towards him by so many distinguished +and eminent men, I cannot refrain from recalling the attitude adopted by +the general run of English-speaking residents in Paris. For the credit of +my country I am glad to be able to put them down mostly as Americans, or +at any rate so Americanised by the constant absorption of "American +drinks" as to be indistinguishable from the genuine article. These +gentlemen "guessed they didn't want Oscar Wilde to be sitting around" in +the bars where they were in the habit of shedding the light of their +presence, and from one of these establishments Oscar Wilde was requested +by the proprietor to withdraw at the instance of one of our "American +cousins" who is now serving a term of two years penal servitude for +holding up and robbing a bank! + +Oscar Wilde, to do him justice, bore this sort of rebuff with astonishing +good temper and sweetness. His sense of humour and his invincible +self-esteem kept him from brooding over what to another man might have +appeared intolerable, and he certainly possessed the philosophical +temperament to a greater extent than any other man I have ever come +across. Every now and then one or other of the very few faithful English +friends left to him would turn up in Paris and take him to dinner at one +of the best restaurants, and anyone who met him on one of these occasions +would have found it difficult to believe that he had ever passed through +such awful experiences. Whether he was expounding some theory, grave or +fantastic, embroidering it the while with flashes of impromptu wit or +deepening it with extraordinary and intimate learning (for, as Ernest +Lajeunesse says, _he knew everything_), or whether he was "keeping the +table in a roar" with his delightfully whimsical humour, summer-lightning +that flashed and hurt no one, he was equally admirable. To have lived in +his lifetime and not to have heard him talk is as though one had lived for +years at Athens without going to look at the Parthenon. + +I wish I could remember one-hundredth part of the good things he said. He +was extraordinarily quick in answer and repartee, and anyone who says that +his wit was the result of preparation and midnight oil can never have +heard him speak. I remember once at dinner a friend of his who had +formerly been in the "Blues," pointing out that in the opening stanza of +"The Ballad of Reading Jail" he had made a mistake in speaking of the +"scarlet coat" of the man who was hanged; he was, as the dedication of the +poem says, a private in the "Blues," and his coat would therefore +naturally not be scarlet. The lines go-- + + He did not wear his scarlet coat, + For blood and wine are red. + +"Well, what could I do," said Oscar Wilde plaintively, "I couldn't very +well say + + He did not wear his azure coat, + For blood and wine are blue-- + +could I?" + +The last time I saw him was about three months before he died. I took him +to dinner at the Grand Café. He was then perfectly well and in the highest +spirits. All through dinner he kept me delighted and amused. Only +afterwards, just before I left him, he became rather depressed. He +actually told me that he didn't think he was going to live long; he had a +presentiment, he said. I tried to turn it off into a joke, but he was +quite serious. "Somehow," he said, "I don't think I shall live to see the +new century." Then a long pause. "If another century began, and I was +still alive, it would be really more than the English could stand." And so +I left him, never to see him alive again. + +Just before he died he came to, after a long period of unconsciousness and +said to a faithful friend who sat by his bedside, "I have had a dreadful +dream; I dreamt that I dined with the dead." "My dear Oscar," replied his +friend, "I am sure you were the life and soul of the party." "Really, you +are sometimes very witty," replied Oscar Wilde, and I believe those are +his last recorded words. The jest was admirable and in his own _genre_; it +was prompted by ready wit and kindness, and because of it Oscar Wilde went +off into his last unconscious phase, which lasted for twelve hours, with +a smile on his lips. I cherish a hope that it is also prophetic, Death +would have no terrors for me if only I were sure of "dining with the +dead."[14] + + + + +"DE PROFUNDIS" + +_A Criticism by_ "_A_" + +(LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS?) + + + "The English are very fond of a man who admits he has been wrong." + + (_The Ideal Husband_). + + + + +"DE PROFUNDIS" + +_A Criticism by_ + +Lord Alfred Douglas + + +In a painful passage in this interesting posthumous book (it takes the +form of a letter to an unnamed friend), Oscar Wilde relates how, on +November the 13th, 1895, he stood for half an hour on the platform of +Clapham Junction, handcuffed and in convict dress, surrounded by an amused +and jeering mob. "For a year after that was done to me," he writes, "I +wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time." That was +before he had discovered or thought he had discovered that his terrible +experiences in prison, his degradation and shame were a part, and a +necessary part, of his artistic life, a completion of his incomplete soul. +After he had learnt humility in the bitterest school that "man's +inhumanity to man" provides for unwilling scholars, after he had drained +the cup of sorrow to the dregs, after his spirit was broken--he wrote this +book in which he tried to persuade himself and others that he had learnt +by suffering and despair what life and pleasure had never taught him. + +If Oscar Wilde's spirit, returning to this world in a malicious mood, had +wished to devise a pleasant and insinuating trap for some of his old +enemies of the press, he could scarcely have hit on a better one than this +book. I am convinced it was written in passionate sincerity at the time, +and yet it represents a mere mood and an unimportant one of the man who +wrote it, a mood too which does not even last through the 150 pages of the +book. "The English are very fond of a man who admits he has been wrong," +he makes one of his characters in "The Ideal Husband" say, and elsewhere +in this book he compares the advantages of pedestals and pillories in +their relation to the public's attitude towards himself. Well here he is +in the pillory, and here also is Mr. Courtney in the "Daily Telegraph" +getting quite fond of him for the very first time. Here is Oscar Wilde, "a +genius," "incontestably one of the greatest dramatists of modern times" as +he is now graciously allowed to be, turning up unexpectedly with an +admission that he was in the wrong, and telling us that his life and his +art would have been incomplete without his imprisonment, that he has +learnt humility and found a new mode of expression in suffering. He is +"purged by grief," "chastened by suffering," and everything, in short, +that he should be, and Mr. Courtney is touched and pleased. What Mr. +Courtney and others have failed to realise, and what Wilde himself did +realise very soon after he wrote this interesting but rather pathetically +ineffective book, is that the mood which produced it was no other than the +first symptom of that mental and physical disease generated by suffering +and confinement which culminated in the death of its gifted and +unfortunate author a few years later. As long as the spirit of revolt was +left in Oscar Wilde, so long was left the fire of creative genius. When +the spirit of revolt died, the flame began to subside, and continued to +subside gradually with spasmodic flickers till its ultimate extinction. "I +have got to make everything that has happened good for me." He writes, +"The plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard rope shredded into oakum till +one's finger tips grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each +day begins, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, the +dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque to look at, the silence, the +solitude, the shame--each and all these things I have to transform into a +spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation of the body which +I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul." But, alas! +plank beds, loathsome food, menial offices, and oakum picking do not +spiritualise the soul; at any rate, they did not spiritualise Oscar +Wilde's soul. The only effect they had was to destroy his magnificent +intellect, and even, as some passages in this book show to temporarily +cloud his superb sense of humour. The return of freedom gave him back the +sense of humour, and the wreck of his magnificent intellect served him so +well to the end of his life that, although he had hopelessly lost the +power of concentration necessary to the production of literary work, he +remained to the day of his death the most brilliant and the most +intellectual talker in Europe. + +It must not be supposed, however, that this book is not a remarkable book +and one which is not worth careful reading. There are fine prose passages +in it, and occasional felicities of phrase which recall the Oscar Wilde of +"The House of Pomegranates" and the "Prose-Poems," and here and there +rather unexpectedly comes an epigram like this for example: "There were +Christians before Christ. For that we should be grateful. The unfortunate +thing is that there have been none since." True, he spoils the epigram by +adding, "I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi." A concession to the +tyranny of facts and the relative importance of sincerity to style, which +is most uncharacteristic of the "old Oscar." Nevertheless, the trace of +the master hand is still visible, and the book contains much that is +profound and subtle on the philosophy of Christ as conceived by this +modern evangelist of the gospel of Life and Literature. One does not +travel further than the 33rd page of the book before finding glaring and +startling inconsistencies in the mental attitude of the writer towards his +fate, for whereas on page 18 in a rather rhetorical passage he speaks of +the "eternal disgrace" he had brought on the "noble and honoured name" +bequeathed him by his father and mother, on page 33 "Reason" tells him +"that the laws under which he was convicted are wrong and unjust laws, and +the system under which he has suffered a wrong and unjust system." But +this is the spirit of revolt not quite crushed. He says that if he had +been released a year sooner, as in fact he very nearly was, he would have +left his prison full of rage and bitterness, and without the treasure of +his new-found "Humility." I am unregenerate enough to wish that he had +brought his rage and bitterness with him out of prison. True, he would +never have written this book if he had come out of prison a year sooner, +but he would almost certainly have written several more incomparable +comedies, and we who reverenced him as a great artist in words, and +mourned his downfall as an irreparable blow to English Literature would +have been spared the rather painful experience of reading the posthumous +praise now at last so lavishly given to what certainly cannot rank within +measurable distance of his best work. + +A. + +From "_The Motorist and Traveller_" (March 1, 1905). + + + + +LIST OF PRIVATELY ISSUED HISTORICAL, ARTISTIC, +AND CLASSICAL WORKS IN ENGLISH + + +Thaïs + +_Romance of the Byzantine Empire (Fourth Century)_ + +From the French of ANATOLE FRANCE + +With Twenty Copper-plate Etchings by Martin van Maele + +PRICE 21_s._ + +"THAÏS" is a work of religious mysticism. The story of the Priest-hero who +sought to stamp out the flames of nature is told with a delicacy and +realism that will at once charm and command the reader's attention. +Anatole France is one of the most brilliant literary men in the world, and +stands foremost amongst giants like Daudet, Zola, and Maupassant. + + The book before us is a historical novel based on the legend of the + conversion of the courtesan Thaïs of Alexandria by a monk of the + Thebaïd. Thaïs may be described as first cousin to the Pelagia of + Charles Kingsley "Hypatia;" indeed, the two books, dealing as they do + with the same place and period, Alexandria in the fourth century, + offer points of resemblance, as well as of difference, many and + various, and sufficiently interesting to be commended to the notice of + students of comparative criticism. There is, however, a subtle and + profound moral lesson about the work of Mr. Anatole France which is + wanting in Kingsley's shallower and more commonplace conception of + human motive and passion. The keynote is struck in the warning which + an old schoolfellow of the monk Paphnutius addresses to him when he + learns of his intention to snatch Thaïs as a brand from the burning: + "Beware of offending Venus. She is a powerful goddess; she will be + angry with you if you take away her chief minister." The monk + disregards the warning of the man of the world, and perseveres with + his self-imposed task, and that so successfully that Thaïs forsakes + her life of pleasure, and ultimately expires in the odour of sanctity. + _Custodes, sed quis custodiet ipsos?_ Paphnutius has deceived himself, + and has failed to perceive that what he took for zeal for a lost soul + was in reality but human desire for a fair face. The monk, who has won + Heaven for the beautiful sinner, loses it himself for love of her, and + is left at the end, baffled and blaspheming, before the dead body of + the woman he has loved all the time without knowing that he loved her. + + It is impossible for the reviewer to convey any adequate notion of the + subtle skill with which the author deals with a delicate but intensely + human theme. Alike as a piece of psychical analysis and as a picture + of the age, this book stands head and shoulders above any that we have + ever read about the period with which it deals. It is a work of rare + beauty, and, we may add, of profound moral truth, albeit not written + precisely _virginibus puerisque_. + + It is emphatically the work of a great artist.--(From a Notice in + "_The Pall Mall Gazette_"). + + +The Well of Santa Clara + +This work is, from the deep interest of its contents, the beauty of its +typography and paper, and the elegance and daring of the illustrations, +one of the finest works in _édition de luxe_ yet offered to the collectors +of rare books. + +Apart from the other stories, all of them written with that exquisite +grace and ironical humour for which Anatole France is unmatched, "The +Human Tragedy," forming half of the book, is alone worthy to rank amongst +the master-efforts of literature. The dominant idea of "The Human Tragedy" +is foreshadowed by the quotation from Euripedes: _All the life of man is +full of pain, and there is no surcease of sorrow. If there be aught better +elsewhere than this present life, it is hid, shrouded in the clouds of +darkness._ + +The English rendering of this work is, from its purity and strength of +style, a veritable _tour de force_. The book will be prized and +appreciated by scholars and lovers of the beautiful in art. + +New Grasset characters have been used for this work, limited to 500 +numbered copies on handmade paper; each page of text is contained in an +artistic green border, and the work in its entirety constitutes a volume +of rare excellence. + +Twenty-one clever COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS (in the most finished style) by +MARTIN VAN MAELE. + + +The Well of Santa Clara + +_CONTENTS_ + + + Pages + + Prologue.--The Reverend Father Adone Doni 1 + + I. San Satiro 18 + + II. Messer Guido Cavalcanti 71 + + III. Lucifer 102 + + IV. The Loaves of Black Bread 116 + + V. The Merry-hearted Buffalmacco 126 + I. The Cockroaches 127 + II. The Ascending up of Andria Tafin 143 + III. The Master 163 + IV. The Painter 172 + + VI. The Lady of Verona 184 + + VII. The Human Tragedy + I. Fra Giovanni 193 + II. The Lamp 206 + III. The Seraphic Doctor 210 + IV. The Loaf on the Flat Stone 214 + V. The Table under the Fig-tree 218 + VI. The Temptation 223 + VII. The Subtle Doctor 232 + VIII. The Burning Coal 245 + IX. The House of Innocence 248 + X. The Friends of Order 260 + XI. The Revolt of Gentleness 271 + XII. Words of Love 280 + XIII. The Truth 288 + XIV. Giovanni's Dream 304 + XV. The Judgment 317 + XVI. The Prince of this World 326 + + VIII. The Mystic Blood 343 + + IX. A Sound Security 360 + + X. History of Doña Maria d'Avalos and the Duke d'Andria 379 + + XI. Bonaparte at San Miniato 405 + +PRICE: ONE GUINEA. + + +Oscar Wilde's Works. + +Poems in Prose: + + The Artist + The Doer of Good + The Disciple + The Master + The House of Judgment, etc. + + Limited Edition of Five Hundred Copies on superior + English vellum paper, and printed in Grasset characters in + red and black. Price 5s. + + Fifty copies on Japanese paper. Price 10s. + + +OSCAR WILDE: + +What Never Dies + +(Ce qui ne meurt pas) + +One Volume small crown 8vo., bound in white parchment. Nearly 400 pages. + +Price 10s. 6d. + +Translated into English by 'Sebastian Melmoth' (OSCAR WILDE), from the +French of BARBEY D'AUREVILLY. A strange and powerful romance of LOVE AND +PASSION IN A COUNTRY HOUSE, similar to the plot unfolded in Guy de +Maupassant's "Lady's Man," but told in even more lordly and brilliant +language; the wonderful French of "Barbey" being rendered into yet more +wonderful English by OSCAR WILDE. + + +THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY + +By Oscar Wilde + +Sole Authorized Version + +_Limited Edition of One Hundred Copies on Real Hand-made English paper, +Price 15s._ + + +Translated from the Latin by Oscar Wilde + +The Satyricon of Petronius + +A Literal and Complete Translation with Notes and Introduction. + +Circular free for 2-1/2d. + +_Price_, £1. 11_s._ 6_d._ + +_Fifteen Copies on Papier de Chine, Price_ £2. 2s. + +This Edition is not only the ... MOST COMPLETE AND BRILLIANT ever done +into English, but it constitutes also a typographical _bijou_, being +printed in a limited number on handmade paper in red and black throughout. + + +Unknown Poems by Lord Byron + +DON LEON + +A Poem by the late Lord Byron + +Author of Childe Harold, Don Juan, etc. + +And forming part of the Private Journal of His Lordship, supposed to have +been entirely destroyed by Thos. Moore. + + "_Pardon, dear Tom, these thoughts on days gone by; + Me men revile and thou must justify. + Yet in my bosom apprehensions rise + (For brother poets have their jealousies), + Lest under false pretences thou shoudst turn + A faithless friend, and these confessions burn._" + +"DON JUAN" is generally spoken of as a composition remarkable for its +daring gallantry; but here is a long connected poetical work by the same +Author which far outdistances "Don Juan" both in audacity of conception +and licence of language. + +These poems were issued _sub rosâ_ in 1866, and owing to the fact that +interested persons bought up immediately on its appearance and burnt the +entire output, any stray copies that chanced to escape the general +destruction, when they turn up nowadays, fetch from Five to Ten Guineas +each. + +_The size of the book is small crown octavo, 134 pp., in artistic paper +wrappers._ + +This issue has been limited to Two Hundred and Fifty copies as follows: + + Price: + + 175 on Ordinary Vellum paper 10s.6d. + + 75 on French hand-made paper £1.1s. + +Detailed circular on demand for 2d. + + +Curious By-Paths of History + +Studies of Louis XIV; Richelieu; Mdlle de la Vallière; Madame de +Pompadour; Sophie Arnould's Sickness; The True Charlotte Corday; A Savage +"Hound;" In the Hands of the "Charcutiers;" Napoleon's Superstitions; The +Affair of Madame Récamier and Queen Elizabeth of England, etc. + +Followed by a fascinating study of + + FLAGELLATION IN FRANCE from a Medical and Historical Standpoint + +With special Foreword by the Editor, dealing with the Reviewers of a +previous work, and sundry other cognate matters good to be known; +particularly concerning the high-handed proceedings of British +Philistinism, which here receives "a rap on the knuckles." A fine +realistic Frontispiece after a design by DANIEL VIERGE, etched by F. +MASSÉ. + +The whole (in Two Volumes), Price 21s. + +With this book is given away (undercover) a fine plate entitled _CONJUGAL +CORRECTION_, reproduced in Aquatint by the Maison Goupil, of Paris, after +the famous Oil Painting of Correggio. + + +Fascinating Historical Studies by a French Physician. + +The Secret Cabinet of History + +Peeped into by a Doctor (Dr. Cabanès) + +Translated by W. C. COSTELLO, And preceded by a letter from the pen of +M. VICTORIEN SARDOU (de l'Académie française). + +One stout Volume of 260 pages. Edition limited to 500 Copies, on fine +quality Dutch (Van Gelder) azure paper, with wide margins and untrimmed +edges, specially manufactured for this Edition; cloth bound. + +Price 12s. 6d. + +_The "get up" of the book will please all who like beautiful printing and +choice paper._ + +Although the bizarre character of some of the subjects may tempt us to +imagine that it is all a fiction, torn from the "Arabian Nights," and +placed in an Eighteenth Century setting, the references and authorities +marshalled by Dr. Cabanès will quickly convince the sceptically inclined +that the whole is based on unimpeachable documents. + + +"Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles" + +(Louis XI.) + +Done now for the first time into English. + +One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories + +right pleasaunte to relate in all goodly compagnie by way of joyaunce and +jollity + +Two volumes demy 8vo., over 526 pages on fine English antique deckle-edged +paper, with FIFTY COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS by LÉON LEBÈQUE, the whole +strongly bound in English water-coloured Silk Cloth. + +Price £3.3s. + +500 NUMBERED COPIES PRINTED + +For England and America + +ALSO 75 LARGE NUMBERED COPIES + +Printed on Japanese vellum + +PRICE: £5. 5s. net + +Although this work has been published many times in French during the last +four-and-a half centuries, it has never hitherto been done into English, +and in fact is little known in England at all on account of its archaic +form, which renders the reading of the original impossible to any but a +student of old French. + +Very little inferior to Boccaccio and far superior to the Heptameron, the +stories possess a brightness and gaiety entirely their own; moreover they +are of high literary merit. + +Illustrated Circular free by post for 5d. + + +The ... Evolution and Dissolution of the Sexual Instinct ... + +By ... Doctor Charles FÉRÉ of the Bicêtre Hospital, (PARIS) + +Price: 21s. + +"Truth and science are never immoral; but it cannot be denied that the +narration of facts relating to sexual physiology and pathology, if their +real significance is not pointed out, may be the cause of perversion in +the case of predisposed subjects. The danger appears more serious to those +who think that normal individuals may be perverted under the influence of +environment, and yet more serious when the sexual instinct is represented +as an uncontrollable instinct, which nobody can resist, however abnormal +the form in which the instinct may reveal itself." + + + + + The Only Worthy Translation into French + + OSCAR WILDE + + Intentions + + Traduction française de HUGUES REBELL + + Préface de CHARLES GROLLEAU + + _Orné d'un portrait_ + + Un volume in-8o carré. Impression de luxe sur _antique vellum_. + + Prix: 6 francs. + + Il a été tiré _trente_ exemplaires sur Japon impérial. + + Prix: 12 francs. + + + PARIS + CHARLES CARRINGTON, LIBRAIRE-EDITEUR + 13, Faubourg Montmartre, 13 + + 1906 + + +NOTICE + +"INTENTIONS" est un des ouvrages les plus curieux qui se puisse lire. On y +trouve tout l'esprit, si paradoxal, toute l'étonnante culture du brillant +écrivain que fut Oscar WILDE. + +Des cinq _Essais_ que contient ce livre, trois sont sous forme de dialogue +et donnent l'impression parfaite de ce qui fut le plus grand prestige de +WILDE: la Causerie. + +La traduction que nous publions aujourd'hui, outre sa fidélité scrupuleuse +et son incontestable élégance, offre cet attrait particulier d'être le +dernier travail d'un des jeunes maîtres de la prose française, Hugues +REBELL, qui l'acheva peu de jours avant sa mort. + +La préface de M. Charles GROLLEAU, écrite avec une délicatesse remarquable +et une émotion pénétrante, constitue la plus subtile étude psychologique +que l'on ait jamais publiée sur Oscar WILDE. + + +Sous presse: + + _Du même Auteur_: + + Poèmes en Prose. + La Duchesse de Padoue. + La Maison des Grenades. + + +L'oeuvre d'Oscar Wilde demande à être traduite à la fois avec précision +et avec art. Les phrases ont des significations si ténues et le choix des +mots est si habile qu'une traduction défectueuse, abondante en contre-sens +ou en coquilles, risquerait de décevoir grandement le lecteur. Car il faut +bien compter que ceux qui se soucient de connaître Oscar Wilde ne peuvent +être ni des concierges ni des cochers de fiacre; ils n'appartiennent +certainement pas à ce «grand public» qui se délecte aux émouvants +feuilletons de nos quotidiens populaires ou qui savoure avidement les +élucubrations égrillardes de certains fabricants de prétendue littérature. +C'est ce qu'avait compris l'éditeur Carrington quand il chargea Hugues +Rebell de lui traduire _Intentions_. Ces essais d'Oscar Wilde représentent +plus particulièrement le côté paradoxal et frondeur de sa personalité. Il +y exprime ses idées ou plutôt ses subtilités esthétiques; il y «cause» +plus qu'ailleurs, à tel point que trois de ces essais sur cinq sont +dialogués; l'auteur s'entretient avec des personnages qu'il suppose aussi +cultivés, aussi beaux esprits que lui-même: «s'entretient» est beaucoup +dire, car ce sont plutôt des contradicteurs auxquels il suggère les +objections dont il a besoin pour poursuivre le développement et le +triomphe de ses arguments. La conversation vagabonde à plaisir et le +causeur y fait étalage de toutes les richesses de son esprit, de son +imagination, de sa mémoire. Au milieu de ces citations, de ces allusions, +de ces exemples innombrables empruntés à tous les temps et à tous les +pays, le traducteur a chance de s'égarer s'il n'est lui-même homme d'une +culture très sûre et très variée. Hugues Rebell pouvait, sans danger de +paraître ignorant ou ridicule, entreprendre de donner une version +d'_Intentions_. Il n'avait certes pas fait de la littérature anglaise +contemporaine, non plus que d'aucune époque, l'objet d'études spéciales. +Mais il connaissait cette littérature dans son ensemble beaucoup mieux que +certains qui s'autorisent de quelques excursions à Londres pour clamer à +tout venant leur compétence douteuse. J'ai souvenir de maintes occasions +où Rebell, avec cet air mystérieux qu'il ne pouvait s'empêcher de prendre +pour les choses les plus simples, m'attirait à l'écart de tel groupe +d'amis, où la conversation était générale, pour me parler de tel jeune +auteur sur qui l'une de mes chroniques avait attiré son attention. Et, +chaque fois, il faisait preuve, en ces matières, d'un savoir très étendu. + +Hugues Rebell fit donc cette nécessaire traduction, et, dit l'éditeur dans +une note préliminaire, «c'est le dernier travail auquel il put se livrer. +Il nous en remit les derniers feuillets peu de jours avant sa mort». +Rebell devait préfacer ce travail d'une étude sur la vie et les oeuvres du +poète anglais, étude qu'il ne put qu'ébaucher, malheureusement, car, avec +Gide,--mais celui-ci d'un point de vue différent et peut-être opposé,--il +était exclusivement qualifié pour saisir, démêler et interpréter l'étrange +personnalité de Wilde. Quelques fragments de cette étude nous sont donnés +cependant et ils nous font très vivement regretter que le vigoureux et +paradoxal auteur de l'_Union des Trois Aristocraties_ n'ait pu achever son +travail. + +Mais ce regret bien légitime se mitige grandement à mesure qu'on lit la +belle préface de M. Charles Grolleau. Prenant pour épigraphe cette pensée +de Pascal: «Je blâme également et ceux qui prennent le parti de louer +l'homme, et ceux qui le prennent de le blâmer, et ceux qui le prennent de +se divertir; et je ne puis approuver que ceux qui cherchent en gémissant», +M. Grolleau s'efforce de comprendre et de résoudre ce «douloureux +problème» que fut Wilde. Et il le fait avec cette réserve et ce parfait +bon goût que doivent s'imposer les véritables amis et les sincères +admirateurs d'Oscar Wilde. Il y a plus, dans ces cinquante pages: il y a +l'une des meilleures études qui aient jamais été faites du brillant +dramaturge. Bien qu'il s'en défende, M. Grolleau, dans cette langue +élégante et harmonieuse que lui connaissent ceux qui ont lu ses beaux +vers, réussit a discerner mieux et à mieux révéler que certaines diatribes +«l'âme et la passion» de l'auteur de _De Profundis_. + + Je me suis interdit d'écrire une biographie. Je ne connais que + l'écrivain, et l'homme est trop vivant encore et si blessé! J'ai la + dévotion des plaies, et le plus beau rite de cette dévotion est le + geste qui voile. + +Toute «cette meditation sur une âme très belle» est écrite avec ce tact +délicat et cette tendre sympathie. Ainsi, après avoir admiré ces +émouvantes pages, le lecteur peut aborder dans un état d'esprit convenable +les essais parfois déconcertants qui sont réunis sous le titre +significatif d'_Intentions_. C'est dans cette belle édition qu'il faut les +lire. On sait avec quel souci d'artiste M. Carrington établit ses volumes; +il n'y laisse pas de ces incroyables coquilles, de ces épais mastics qui +ressemblent si fort à des contre-sens, et, sachant quel public intelligent +et éclairé voudrait ce livre, il n'a pas eu l'idée saugrenue d'abîmer ses +pages par d'inutiles notes assurant le lecteur par exemple que Dante a +écrit la Divine Comédie, que Shelley fut un grand poète, que Keats mourut +poitrinaire, que George Eliot était femme de lettres et Lancret peintre. +Un portrait de l'auteur est reproduit en tête de cette excellente édition. + +Henry-D. Davray. + +_(Extrait du "Mercure de France," 15 septembre 1905)._ + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Hugues Rebell. + +[2] Hugues Rebell. + +[3] Sebastian Melmoth (Oscar Wilde). + +[4] Hugues Rebell. + +[5] _De Profundis._ + +[6] Hugues Rebell. + +[7] _Studies in Prose & Verse_, by Arthur Symons. (Lond. 1905). + +[8] Sebastian Melmoth. + +[9] _Intentions._ + +[10] Hugues Rebell. + +[11] _Macaulay._ + +[12] De Profundis, 1905. + +[13] De Profundis, 1905. + +[14] Both of the articles given above appeared for the first time in the +ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trial of Oscar Wilde, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE *** + +***** This file should be named 38916-8.txt or 38916-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/9/1/38916/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +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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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: The Trial of Oscar Wilde + From the Shorthand Reports + +Author: Anonymous + +Release Date: February 18, 2012 [EBook #38916] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<h1>The Trial<br /><small>of</small><br />Oscar Wilde</h1> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center">Issued for Private Circulation Only and Limited<br /> +to 50 Copies on Japanese Vellum and<br /> +Five Hundred Copies on Handmade Paper<br /> +Numbered from One to Five Hundred<br /> +and Fifty.<br /> +<br /> +No 184<br /> +</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title_page.jpg" alt="" /><br /> +<a href="#title"><small>Text of Title Page</small></a></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> + +<p class="note">“<i>It is wrong for us during the greater part of the time to handle these +questions with timidity and false shame, and to surround them with +reticence and mystery. Matters relating to sexual life ought to be studied +without the introduction of moral prepossessions or of preconceived ideas. +False shame is as hateful as frivolity. It is a matter of pressing concern +to rid ourself of the old prejudice that we “sully our pens” by touching +upon facts of this class. It is necessary at all costs to put aside our +moral, esthetic, or religious personality, to regard facts of this nature +merely as natural phenomena, with impartiality and a certain elevation of +mind.</i>”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img01.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="title">PREFACE</p> + +<div class="note"><p><i>I blame equally as much those who take it upon themselves to praise +man, as those who make it their business to blame him, together with +others who think that he should be perpetually amused; and only those +can I approve who seek for truth with tear-filled eyes.</i></p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Pascal.</span></p></div> + + +<p><br />In “<i>De Profundis</i>,” that harmonious and last expression of the perfect +artist, Wilde seems, in a single page to have concentrated in guise of +supreme confession, all the pain and passion that stirred and sobbed in +his soul.</p> + +<p>“<i>This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it, +is of course no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by means of +development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember when I was at +Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round Magdalen’s +narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my degree, +that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span>world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my +soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that +I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the +sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and +its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears +even, the broken words that come from lips in pain, remorse that makes one +walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, +the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses +sack-cloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall:—all these +were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to know nothing +of them, I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to +have for a season, indeed no other food at all.</i>”</p> + +<p>Further on, he tells us that his dominant desire was to seek refuge in the +deepest shade of the garden, for his mouth was full of the bitterness of +the dead-sea fruit that he had tasted, adding that this tomb-like aroma +was the befitting and necessary outcome of his preceding life of error.</p> + +<p>We are inclined to think he deceived himself.</p> + +<p>The day wherein he was at last compelled to face the horror of his +tragical destiny his soul was tried beyond endurance. He strode +deliberately, as he himself assures us, towards the gloomiest nook of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> the +garden, inwardly trembling perhaps, but proud notwithstanding ... hoping +against hope that the sun’s rays would seek him out even there ... or in +other words, that he would not cease to live that <i>Bios theoretikos</i>, +which he held to be the greatest ideal.</p> + +<p>“<i>From the high tower of Thought we can look out at the world. Calm, and +self-centred, and complete, the æsthetic critic contemplates life, and no +arrow drawn at a venture can pierce between the joints of his harness.</i>”</p> + +<p>We all know what arrows struck him, arrows that he himself had sharpened, +and that Society had not forgotten to tip with poison.</p> + +<p>“Neither his own heedlessness nor the envious and hypocritical anger of +his enemies, nor the snobbish cruelty of social reprobation were the true +cause of his misfortunes. It was he himself who, after a time of horrible +anguish, consented to his punishment, with a sort of supercilious disdain +for the weakness of human will, and out of a certain regard and unhealthy +curiosity for the sportfulness of fate. Here was a voluptuary seeking for +torture and desiring pain after having wallowed in every sensual +pleasure.... Could such conduct have been due to aught else but sheer +madness?”</p> + +<p>The true debauchee has no such object. He seeks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> only for pleasure and +discounts beforehand the conditions that Life dictates for the same; the +conditions laid down containing no guarantee that the pleasure will be +actually grasped except only in promise and anticipation. Later, too proud +to acknowledge his cruel disappointment, he will gravely assure us that +the bitterness left in the bottom of the goblet whose wine he has quaffed, +has indeed the sweet taste that he sought after. Certain minds are +satisfied with the fantasmagoria of their intelligence, whereas the +voluptuary finds happiness only in the pleasure of realisation. In his +heart he concocts for himself a prodigious mixture of sorrow and of joy, +of suffering and of ecstacy, but the great world, wotting naught of this +secret alchemy and judging only according to the facts which lie upon the +surface, slices down to the same level, with the same stupid knife, the +strange, beautiful flower, as well as the evil weed that grew apace.</p> + +<p>Remy de Gourmont said of the famous author, Paul Adam, that he was “a +magnificent spectacle.” Wilde may be pronounced a painful problem. He +seems to escape literary criticism in order to fall under the keen +scalping knife of the analytical moralist, by the paradoxical fact of his +apparently imperious purpose to hew out and fashion forth his life as a +work of art.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>“Save here and there, in <i>Intentions</i> and in his poems, the <i>Poem of +Reading Gaol</i>, nothing of his soul has he thrown into his books; he seemed +to desire, one can almost postulate as a certainty, the stupendous tragedy +that blasted his life. From the abyss where his flesh groaned in misery, +his conscience hovered above him contemplating his woeful state whilst he +thus became the spectator of his own death-throes.”<a name='fna_1' id='fna_1' href='#f_1'><small>[1]</small></a></p> + +<p>That is the reason why he stirs us so deeply.</p> + +<p>Those who might be tempted to search in his work for an echo however +feeble, of a new message to mankind, will be grievously disappointed. The +technical cleverness of Wilde is undeniable, but the magnificent dress in +which he has clothed it appears to us to have been borrowed. He has +brought us neither remedy nor poison; he leads us nowhere, but at the same +time we are conscious that he has been everywhere. No companion of ours is +he, but all the companions we hold dear he has known. True he sat at the +feet of the wise men of Greece in the Gardens of Academus, but the +eurythmy of their gests fascinated him more than the soberness of their +doctrines. Dante he followed in all his subterranean travels and +peregrinations, but all that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> he has to relate to us after his frightful +journeyings is merely an ecstatic description of the highly-wrought +scenery that he had witnessed.</p> + +<p>“I packed all my genius, said he, into my life, I have put only my talent +into my works.” Unfaithful to the principle which he learnedly deduced in +<i>Intentions</i>, viz: that the undivided soul of a writer should incorporate +itself in his work, even as Shakespeare pushing aside the “<i>impulses that +stirred so strongly within him that he had, as it were perforce, to suffer +them to realize their energy, not on the lower plane of actual life, where +they would have been trammelled and constrained and so made imperfect, but +on that of the imaginative plane of art</i>,” ... he came to confound the +intensity of feeling with the calmness of beauty. Possessed of a mind of +rare culture, he nevertheless only evoked, when he touched Art, harmonious +vibrations perhaps, but vibrations which others, after all said and done, +had already created before him. He succeeded in producing nothing more +than a splendid and incomparable echo. The most that can be said is that +the music he had in his soul he kept there, living all the time a crowded, +ostentatious life, and distinguishing himself as a superlative +conversationalist. Be this as it may, posterity cannot judge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> us according +to those possibilities of our nature which were never developed. However +numerous may be the testimonies in our favour, she cannot pronounce +excepting on the works, or at least, the materials left by the workman. It +is this which renders so precarious the actor’s fleeting glory, as it +likewise dissipates the golden halo that hovers over the brilliant Society +<i>causeur</i>. Nothing remains of Mallarmé excepting a few cunningly wrought +verses, inferior to the clearer and more profound poems of his great +master, Baudelaire. Of Wilde nothing will remain beyond his written works +which are vastly inferior to his brilliant epigrammatic conversation.</p> + +<p>In our days, the master of repartee and the after-dinner speaker is +fore-doomed to forgetfulness, for he always stands alone, and to gain +applause has to talk down to and flatter lower-class audiences. No writer +of blood-curdling melodramas, no weaver of newspaper novels is obliged to +lower his talent so much as the professional wit. If the genius of +Mallarmé was obscured by the flatterers that surrounded him, how much more +was Wilde’s talent overclouded by the would-be witty, shoddy-elegant, and +cheaply-poetical society hangers-on, who covered him with incense? One of +his devoted literary courtezans, who has written a life of Wilde, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> +is nothing more than a rhapsodidal panegyric of his intimacy with the +poet, tells us that the first attempts of the sparkling conversationalist +were not at all successful in Paris drawing-rooms. In the house of Victor +Hugo seeing he had to let the veteran sleep out his nap whilst others +among the guests slumbered also, he made up his mind to astonish them. He +succeeded, but at what a cost! Although he was a verse writer, most +sincerely devoted to poetry and art, and one of the most emotional and +sensitive and tender-hearted amongst modern wielders of the pen he +succeeded only in gaining a reputation for artificiality.</p> + +<p>We all know his studied paradoxes, his five or six continually repeated +tales, but we are tempted to forget the charming dreamer who was full of +tenderness for everything in nature.</p> + +<p>“It is true that Mallarmé has not written much, but all he has done is +valuable. Some of his verses are most beautiful whilst Wilde seemed never +to finish anything. The works of the English aesthete are very +interesting, because they characterize his epoch; his pages are useful +from a documentary point of view, but are not extraordinary from a +literary standpoint. In the <i>Duchess of Padua</i>, he imitates Hugo and +Sardou; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> <i>Picture of Dorian Grey</i> was inspired by Huysmans; +<i>Intentions</i> is a <i>vade-mecum</i> of symbolism, and all the ideas contained +therein are to be found in Mallarmé and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. As for +Wilde’s poetry, it closely follows the lines laid down by Swinburne. His +most original composition is <i>Poems in Prose</i>. They give a correct idea of +his home-chat, but not when he was at his best; that no doubt, is because +the art of talking must always be inferior to any form of literary +composition. Thoughts properly set forth in print after due correction +must always be more charming than a finely sketched idea hurriedly +enunciated when conversing with a few disciples. In ordinary table-talk we +meet nothing more than ghosts of new-born ideas fore-doomed to perish. The +jokes of a wit seldom survive the speaker. When we quote the epigrams of +Wilde, it is as if we were exhibiting in a glass case, a collection of +beautiful butterflies, whose wings have lost the brilliancy of their once +gaudy colours. Lively talk pleases, because of the man who utters it, and +we are impressed also by the gestures which accompany his frothy +discourse. What remains of the sprightly quips and anecdotes of such +celebrated <i>hommes d’esprit</i>, as Scholl, Becque, Barbey d’Aurevilly! Some +stories of the XVIIIth. century have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> been transmitted to us by Chamfort, +but only because he carefully remodelled them by the aid of his clever +pen.”<a name='fna_2' id='fna_2' href='#f_2'><small>[2]</small></a></p> + +<p>These opinions of Rebell questionable though they may be, show us plainly +something of the charm and the weakness of Wilde.</p> + +<p>A perfect artist desiring to leave his mark on the temple-columns of Fame +must not live among his fellow men ambitious to taste the bitterness and +the sweetness alike of every caress of existence, but submit himself +pitilessly to the thraldom of the writing desk. Some authors may produce +masterpieces amidst the busy throng; but there are others who lose all +power of creation unless they shut themselves up for a time and live +severely by rote. When Wilde was dragging out a wretched life in the +sordid room of a cheap, furnished hotel, where he eventually died, did he +ever remember while reading Balzac by the flickering light of his one +candle that the great master of French literature often sought solitude +and wrestled for eighteen hours at a stretch with the demon of severe +toil? Did he ever repeat the doleful wail of the Author of <i>La Comédie +Humaine</i> who was sometimes heard to exclaim in sad tones:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> “<i>I ought not +to have done that.... I ought to have put black on white, black on +white....</i>”</p> + +<p>Few experiments are really necessary for the literary creator who seeks to +analyse the stuff of which Life is composed in order to dissolve for us +all its elements and demonstrate its ever-present underlying essence. The +romance writer must stand away from the crowd, if only for a time, and +reflect deeply upon what he has seen and heard. The power of thought, to +be free and fruitful, cannot flourish without the strength of ascetism. We +must yield to that law which decrees that action may not be the +twin-sister of dreams. Those who live a life of pleasure can only give us +colourless falsehoods when they try to depict sincerity of feeling. The +confessions of sensualists resemble volcanic ashes.</p> + +<p>Wilde himself gives us the key to his errors and his weakness:</p> + +<p>“<i>Human life is the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there is +nothing else of any value. It is true that as one watches life in its +curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one cannot wear over one’s face a +mask of glass nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and +making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshappen +dreams. There are poisons so subtle that to know their properties one has +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> sicken of them. There are maladies so strange that one has to pass +through them if one seeks to understand their nature. And yet what a great +reward one receives! How wonderful the whole world becomes to one! To note +the curious, hard logic of passion and the emotional, coloured life of the +intellect—to observe where they meet, and where they separate, at what +point they are in unison and at what point they are in discord—there is a +delight in that! What matter what the cost is? One can never pay too high +a price for any sensation.</i>”<a name='fna_3' id='fna_3' href='#f_3'><small>[3]</small></a></p> + +<p>The brain becomes dulled at this sport, which it would be illusory to call +a study. He who uses his intellect to serve only his sensuality can +produce nothing elaborate but what is artificial. Such is the dilemma of +Wilde, whose collections of writings is like a painted stage-scene, mere +garish canvas, behind which there is never anything substantial.</p> + +<p>“When I first saw Wilde, he had not yet been seared by the brand of +general reprobation. Often I changed my opinion of him, but at first I +felt the enthusiasm which young literary aspirants always feel for those +who have made their mark; then the law-suit took place, followed by the +dramatic thunderclap of a criminal prosecution; and my soul revolted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> as +if some great iniquity had been consummated. Later on, it seemed to me +that the man of fashion had swallowed up the literary god, his baggage +seemed light, and his brilliant butterfly-life had perhaps been of more +importance to him than the small pile of volumes bearing his name.</p> + +<p>“To-day, I seem clearly to understand what sort of a man he +was—extraordinary beyond a doubt; but never has artificial sentiment been +so cunningly mingled with seemingly natural simplicity and pulsating +pleasure in one and the same man.”<a name='fna_4' id='fna_4' href='#f_4'><small>[4]</small></a></p> + +<p>“<i>I must say to myself that I ruined myself and that nobody great or small +can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am +trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This +pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was +what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible +still.</i></p> + +<p><i>I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my +age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and +had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position +in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually +discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long +after both the man and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> age have passed away. With me it was different. +I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, +but his relations were the passion of his age and its weariness of +passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital +issue, of larger scope.</i></p> + +<p><i>The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into +long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a</i> +flâneur, <i>a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller +natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, +and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the +heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new +sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity +became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, +or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took +pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little +action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore +what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on +the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain +of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I +ended in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute +humility.</i>”<a name='fna_5' id='fna_5' href='#f_5'><small>[5]</small></a></p> + +<p>This confession of irreparable defeat while being exceedingly dolorous, is +unfortunately, rendered still further painful by other pages which +contradict it, and almost tempt us to doubt its sincerity, in spite of the +fact that Wilde was always sincere for those who knew how to read between +the lines and enter into his spirit.</p> + +<p>“There is no doubt that he was truly a most extraordinary man, endowed +with striking originality, but a man who at the same time took more than +uncommon care to hide his gifts under a cloak bought in some conventional +bazaar which made a point of keeping abreast with the fashions of the +day.”<a name='fna_6' id='fna_6' href='#f_6'><small>[6]</small></a></p> + +<p>What brought about his downfall was the mad idea that possessed him of the +possibility of employing in the service of noble aspirations all, without +exception, all the passions that moved and agitated his human soul. +Everyone of us is, no doubt, peopled at times with mysterious spirits, +ephemeral apparitions, which like the wild beasts that Christ long ago +cast out of the Gadarene swine, tear themselves to pieces in internecine +warfare. It is with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span> such soldiers as these, who very seldom obey the +superior orders of the higher intellect, or desert and rebel against us at +the opportune moment, that we are called upon to withstand the onslaught +of a thousand enemies. Wilde made the grand mistake of trying to +understand them all. He believed that they were capable of adapting +themselves to that powerful instinct which animated him, and which +directed him, wherever he wandered or wherever he went, towards the spirit +of Beauty. This error lasted long enough perhaps to convince him of the +power that was born in him, but unfortunately, the revelation of his error +came too late.</p> + +<p>My object in this preface is not to write the life of Wilde.</p> + +<p>I have only to do with the Writer, for the Man is yet too much alive and +his wounds have scarcely ceased bleeding! In the presence of still living +sorrow, crimson-tinged, respect commands us to stand bareheaded; before +the scarred face of woe the voice is dumb; we should, above all, endeavour +rather to ignore the accidents that thrust themselves into a life and try +to discover the great, calm soul, beautiful in its melancholy, which +though pained and suffering, has never ceased to be nobly inspired. To +prove that this was true in the case of Wilde, we may have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span> recourse to +some of those who knew him well and who form a great “cloud of witnesses,” +testifying to the veracity of the things we have laid down.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arthur Symons, a keen and large-minded critic, a friend of Wilde’s, +and an elegant and forcible writer to boot, in his recent volume: +“<i>Studies in Prose and Verse</i>,” characterizes Wilde as a “poet of +attitudes,” and we cannot do better than quote a few lines from the fine +article which he consecrated to our author:</p> + +<p>“<i>When the “Ballad of Reading Gaol” was published, he said, it seemed to +some people that such a return to, or so startling a first acquaintance +with, real things, was precisely what was most required to bring into +relation, both with life and art an extraordinary talent so little in +relation with matters of common experience, so fantastically alone in a +region of intellectual abstractions. In this poem, where a style formed on +other lines seems startled at finding itself used for such new purposes, +we see a great spectacular intellect, to which, at last, pity and terror +have come in their own person, and no longer as puppets in a play. In its +sight, human life has always been something acted on the stage; a comedy +in which it is the wise man’s part to sit aside and laugh, but in which he +may also disdainfully take part, as in a carnival, under any mask. The +unbiassed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span> scornful intellect, to which humanity has never been a burden, +comes now to be unable to sit aside and laugh, and it has worn and looked +behind so many masks that there is nothing left desirable in illusion. +Having seen, as the artist sees, further than morality, but with so +partial an eyesight as to have overlooked it on the way, it has come at +length to discover morality in the only way left possible, for itself. +And, like most of those who, having “thought themselves weary,” have made +the adventure of putting thought into action, it has had to discover it +sorrowfully, at its own incalculable expense. And now, having become so +newly acquainted with what is pitiful, and what seems most unjust, in the +arrangement of human affairs, it has gone, not unnaturally, to an extreme, +and taken, on the one hand, humanitarianism, on the other realism, at more +than their just valuation, in matters of art. It is that odd instinct of +the intellect, the necessity of carrying things to their furthest point of +development, to be more logical than either life or art, two very wayward +and illogical things, in which conclusions do not always follow from +premises.</i></p> + +<p><i>His intellect was dramatic, and the whole man was not so much a +personality as an attitude....</i></p> + +<p><i>And it was precisely in his attitudes that he was most sincere. They +represented his intentions; they stood for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span> the better, unrealised part of +himself. Thus his attitude, towards life and towards art, was untouched by +his conduct; his perfectly just and essentially dignified assertion of the +artist’s place in the world of thought and the place of beauty in the +material world being in nowise invalidated by his own failure to create +pure beauty or to become a quite honest artist. A talent so vividly at +work as to be almost genius was incessantly urging him into action, mental +action.</i></p> + +<p><i>Realising as he did, that it is possible to be very watchfully cognisant +of that “quality of our moments as they pass,” and so shape them after +one’s own ideal much more continuously and consciously than most people +have ever thought of trying to do, he made for himself many souls, souls +of intricate pattern and elaborate colour, webbed into infinite tiny +cells, each the home of a strange perfume, perhaps a poison. “Every soul +had its own secret, and was secluded from the soul which had gone before +it or was to come after it. And this showman of souls was not always aware +that he was juggling with real things, for to him they were no more than +the coloured glass balls which the juggler keeps in the air, catching them +one after another. For the most part the souls were content to be +playthings; now and again they took a malicious revenge, and became so +real that even the juggler was aware of it. But when they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span> became too real +he had to go on throwing them into the air and catching them, even though +the skill of the game had lost its interest for him. But as he never lost +his self-possession, his audience, the world, did not see the +difference.</i>”<a name='fna_7' id='fna_7' href='#f_7'><small>[7]</small></a></p> + +<p>Thus not wishing to live for himself, Wilde was surprised into living +mainly for others, and his ever-present desire to astonish was one of the +prime causes that led to his overthrow. Yet, in spite of this, what riches +of the mind, one easily divines him to possess, if for a moment we peer +beyond the mobile curtain of his paradoxes. Those who listened to him, +this modern St. Chrysostom, on whose lips there was ever an ambiguous +smile, could not fail to see that he spoke to himself, was occupied in +translating that which was passing in his mind, trying in a sense, to +ravish his auditors and plunge them even into greater, though only +ephemeral, ravishment, whilst ushering them into an absolutely unreal and +immaterial kingdom of capricious fantasy, and they will remember that he +was sometimes astonishingly profound and grave, and always charming, +paradoxical, and eloquent. His mind constantly dwelt upon the questions of +Art and Aesthetics. In <i>Intentions</i> he laid down serious problems, which +in themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span> bore every appearance of contradiction, and which any +attempt to resolve would, at the outset, appear puerile and ambitious.</p> + +<p>For instance:—Is lying a fundamental principle of Art, that is to say, of +every art?</p> + +<p>Is it possible for there to be perfect concordance between a finely +ordered and pure life, and the worship of Beauty; or, are we to consider +such a consummation as utterly impossible and chimerical?</p> + +<p>Must there be a permanent and necessary divorce between Ethics and +Aesthetics?</p> + +<p>Ought we, beneath the flowery mask of a borrowed smile, allow ourselves to +be carried away by all the waves of instinct?</p> + +<p>The art of Criticism, is it superior to Art? The Interpreter can he be +superior to the creator? Must we modify the profound axiom, “to understand +is to equal,” not by reducing it to that other axiom, more profound +perhaps, “to understand is to achieve,” but by modifying it with that, +which, at the first glance looks at least passingly strange “to understand +is to surpass?”</p> + +<p>Such are the questions which Wilde postulated in <i>Intentions</i> and worked +out with great audacity, but with no higher object than to win admiration, +and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span> this with the indifferent suppleness of a conjuror of words.</p> + +<p><i>Intentions</i> is a study of artificial genius, culture, and instinct, and, +for this reason, it forms a most curious production. In itself it can +hardly be termed a magistral work, inasmuch as all the theories enunciated +in it are, at least, twenty years old, and appear to us to-day quite worn +out and decrepit. As much may be said, also, for the theories put forward +by our young, contemporaneous artists who undertake to discuss all things +in Heaven and Earth, and whose vapourings on Life, Nature, Social Art and +other things—especially other things—are no more guaranteed against +mortality than the doctrines above specified. Let them remember, in +reading Wilde’s work, that their Aesthetical doctrines will soon become as +antiquated, and that it is no bid for lasting fame to write flashy novels, +pretty verses, high-flown or realistic dramas, pessimistic or optimistic +plays, imbued with Schopenhaurian and Nitzschien principles, since the +crying need of the time is for sincere work. All the doctrines ever +invented are mere tittle-tattle, only fit to amuse brainless ladies +wanting in beauty, or minds stricken with positive sterility.</p> + +<p>It is not inexact that in <i>Intentions</i> one meets with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span> profound truth +now and again, but the dressing of it is so paradoxical that we run a risk +of misinterpreting all that may animate it of genuine fitness and +sincerity.</p> + +<p>Wilde may truly be denominated the last representative of that English art +of the XIXth. century, which beginning with Shelley, continuing with the +Pre-Raphaelites and culminating with the American painter, Whistler, +endeavours purposely to set forth an ideal and elegant expression of the +world.</p> + +<p>The mistake of these men lies in the belief that Art was made for Life; +whereas it is, as a matter of fact, quite the contrary. Life has no other +value, except as subject-matter, for poet and painter. These are excentric +theories, certainly, but then, what on earth, does it matter about +theories? Do not they serve the great artist to make his genius more +puissant, and enable him to concentrate all his forces in the same +direction by uniting instead of scattering them? With, or in spite of his +theories, Shelley wrote his poems and Whistler painted his pictures; if +their æsthetic basis was bad, one, at least, cannot pretend that it was +dangerous, since it enabled them to accomplish their masterpieces. Wilde, +unfortunately, was an æsthete before he was a poet, and produced his works +somewhat in the spirit of bravado. He had been told that he could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</a></span> +create aught of good: the reply, triumphant and crushing was, the <i>Picture +of Dorian Grey</i>. He is a literary problem; and in considering him, we are +struck with the unwarranted corruption, by his acquaintances, of a fine +artistic sensibility.</p> + +<p>The fashionable drawing-rooms of the West-End brought about his downfall, +or rather, and it amounts to the same thing: his frank and undisguised +desire to please and to dazzle them proved his undoing. Possibly the same +misfortune would have overtaken Merimée, had it not been for his lofty and +vigorous intelligence; as it was, he lost more than once, most precious +time in composing “<i>Chambres bleues</i>,” when he was undoubtedly capable of +producing another “<i>Colomba</i>,” and other variations of “<i>Vases +étrusques</i>.”</p> + +<p>With all this, let us be thoroughly just; <i>Intentions</i> is far from +containing anything but mere paradoxes. Those that we find there are at +any rate of very diverse kinds. Some are pure verbal amusements, and may +be thrust aside after the moment’s attention that they snatched from our +surprise. Others belong to a nobler family of ideas and awaken in us the +lasting and fecund astonishment of the paradox which is born sound and +healthy, because it concerns a new truth. Into the mental landscape, +these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span> paradoxes introduce that sudden change of perspective, which forces +the mind to rise or to descend, and thus causes us to discover other +horizons. What a grievous error would it be on our part not to feel +something of that immense and exhaustive love of beauty which haunted the +soul of Wilde until the bitter end? However artificial his work may appear +at the first glance, there is still sufficient left of the man which was +incomparable. We instinctively feel that he belonged to the chosen race of +those upon whom the “spirit of the hour” had laid his magic wand, and who +give forth at the cunning touch of the Magician some of the finest notes +of which our stunted human nature is capable. Men thus endowed, enjoy the +rare privilege of being unable to proffer a single word, without our +perceiving however confusedly, the splendid harmony of an almost universal +accompaniment of ideas. The choir, their eyes fixed upon the eyes of the +master-musician, follows his inspired gestures with jealous care, and +seeks to interpret his every nod and movement.</p> + +<p>None but an artist could have written the admirable pages on Shakespeare, +Greek Art, and other elevated themes that are to be found in the works of +Oscar Wilde.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxviii" id="Page_xxviii">[Pg xxviii]</a></span>More than an artist was he, who noted down the suggestive thought: that +the humility of the matter of a work of art is an element of culture. If +therefore, we hear him exclaim that “thought is a sickness,” we must bear +in mind that this is simply an analysis of the phrase: “<i>We live in a +period whose reading is too vast to allow it to become wise, and which +thinks too much to be beautiful.</i>”</p> + +<p>Our eyes can no longer penetrate the esoteric meaning of the statues of +the olden times, beautiful with glorified animality, and which have alas, +become for us little more than the tongue-tied offspring of the inspiring +god Pan, dead beyond all hope of rebirth. Our brains have become stupified +through the heaviness of the flesh, and this, perhaps, because we have +treated the flesh as a slave.</p> + +<p>“<i>The worship of the senses, wrote Wilde, has often, and with much +justice, been decried; men feeling a natural instinct of terror about +passions and sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they +are conscious of sharing with the less highly-organised forms of +existence. But it is probable the true nature of the senses has never been +understood, and that they have remained savage and animal merely because +the world has sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by +pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxix" id="Page_xxix">[Pg xxix]</a></span> new spirituality, of +which a fine instinct for beauty will be the dominant characteristic.</i>”<a name='fna_8' id='fna_8' href='#f_8'><small>[8]</small></a></p> + +<p>In these lines, we may perhaps find the key of a certain metamorphosis in +the poet’s life, before Circe, that terrible sorceress, had passed his +way.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">“<i>Who knows not Circe,</i></span><br /> +<i>The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup</i><br /> +<i>Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,</i><br /> +<i>And downward fell into a grovelling swine?</i>”<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">(<i>Milton: Comus, 50-53.</i>)</span></p> + +<p>The infant King of Rome, we are told, looking out from a window of the +Louvre one day, at the muddy street where young children were +playing,—sad in the midst of a perfumed and divinely flattering +court,—cried out: “I too, would like to roll myself in that beautiful +mud.” We are inclined to think from a sentimental outlook, that Wilde also +had the same morbid desire; but, he was worth better things; and there +were times in his life when serene aspirations moved his heart before he +sat down to the festive board of Sin.</p> + +<p>He had a pronounced tendency towards the <i>discipulat</i>; used to question +youths about their studies and their mind, showing as much interest in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxx" id="Page_xxx">[Pg xxx]</a></span> +them as a spiritual confessor, inebriating himself with their enthusiasm, +and surrounding himself more and more with a medley of different friends. +A vigorous pagan, ardent, intoxicated with souvenirs of Antiquity, +heart-sick of his worldly successes, he dreamed perhaps of living over +again:</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Ces héröiques jours où les jeunes pensées<br /> +Allaient chercher leur miel aux lèvres d’un Platon.</i></p> + +<p>But this <i>artificiel de l’art</i> was, although he wotted it not, a man who +rioted in the good things of life. He sought to inculcate in himself a +quiet spirit which believes itself invulnerable.</p> + +<p>“<i>And when we reach the true culture that is our aim, we attain to that +perfection of which the saints have dreamed, the perfection of those to +whom sin is impossible, not because they make the renunciations of the +ascetic, but because they can do everything they wish without hurt to the +soul, and can wish for nothing that can do the soul harm, the soul being +an entity so divine that it is able to transform into elements of a richer +experience, or a finer susceptibility, or a newer mode of thoughts, acts +or passions that with the common would be commonplace, or with the +uneducated ignoble, or with the shameful vile.</i>”<a name='fna_9' id='fna_9' href='#f_9'><small>[9]</small></a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxi" id="Page_xxxi">[Pg xxxi]</a></span>This passage shows us a state of things very far removed from the old +dream of antiquity.</p> + +<p>He forgot, alas! the puritanism and sublime discourses of Diotime, which +have been so finely pictured for us by Plato, to wallow in the orgies of +the Island of Capria.</p> + +<p>Before that Criminal Court, where he vainly struggled so as “not to appear +naked before men,” we hear him proclaim what he had himself desired and +perhaps attained.</p> + +<p>What interpretation, asked the judge, can you give us of the verse:</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>I am the Love which dares not tell its name</i></p> + +<p>“The Love referred to,” replied Wilde, “is that which exists between a man +of mature years and a young man; the love of David and of Jonathan. It is +the same love that Plato made the basis of his philosophy; it is that love +which is sung in the Sonnets of Shakespeare and of Michael-Angelo; it is a +profound spiritual affection, as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, +pure and noble; it is intellectual, the love of a man possessing full +experience of life, and of a young man full of all the joy and all the +hope of the future.”</p> + +<p>There in that struggle in the midst of thick <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxii" id="Page_xxxii">[Pg xxxii]</a></span>darkness, this must have +been the cry of his tormented soul, a breath of pure air as he passed, a +perfumed memory ... then there came a few arrow flights badly winged which +only wounded his own heart.</p> + +<p>He defended himself in an indifferent way according to some people, +although it must be admitted that he gave the answers that were necessary +and becoming, and, in some cases, compelled his judges, who were no better +than the mouth-pieces of the crowd, to confess the hatred that the worship +of beauty had inspired.</p> + +<p>“However strange may have been his attitude, that attitude could not have +been indifferent to anyone. Those who have been fortunate enough to laugh +at the portrait that René Boylesve has drawn of the æsthete in his fine +novel “Le Parfum des Iles Borromées,” would find it difficult to make a +mock of the man who accepted with superb disinterestedness, the torture +that he knew beforehand the judges would inevitably inflict upon him.</p> + +<p>Although he may not have been a great poet, although the pretext of his +equivocal mode of living was taken to condemn him, we cannot lose sight of +the art and of the literary craftsman that were condemned at the same time +with him.”<a name='fna_10' id='fna_10' href='#f_10'><small>[10]</small></a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxiii" id="Page_xxxiii">[Pg xxxiii]</a></span><i>We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its +periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family +quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for +a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes +outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be +violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that +the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly +some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose +offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory +sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a +profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, +and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose +vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is +supposed, sufficiently chastised.</i><a name='fna_11' id='fna_11' href='#f_11'><small>[11]</small></a></p> + +<p>This bitter denunciation of English mock-modesty by the brilliant Essayist +rests upon thoroughly justifiable grounds. Once again in the dolorous +history of humanity, the grotesque farce was enacted of chasing forth the +scapegoat into the wilderness to bear away the sins of the people. But, in +this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxiv" id="Page_xxxiv">[Pg xxxiv]</a></span> instance, the unhappy creature was not only laden with the sins of +the tribe; a heavier burden still had been added to all the others: the +fearful burden of the mad, unreasoned hatred of the sinners. Indeed he, +whose share in the general load of sin was the greatest, sought to add +more hatred than all the others to the great fardel under which the victim +staggered, and believing himself so much the more innocent that the +abjection of the unfortunate wretch was complete, would have been glad had +it been in his power to help even the public hangman in the execution of +his nefarious task. We have observed that through some diabolical strain +in human nature, the evil joy which creates scandal and gives rise to a +man’s downfall, increases in intensity if the victim happens to be a man +of superior rank and talent.</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>On voit briller au fond des prunelles haineuses,<br /> +L’orgueil mystérieux de souiller la Beauté.</i></p> + +<p>How great must have been the delighted intoxication of numberless weak +minds when they were impelled, in the midst of a silence that braver and +clearer spirits dared not break, to screech out vociferations against Art +and Thought, denouncing these as the accomplices of the momentary +aberrations of him who erstwhile worshipped at their shrine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxv" id="Page_xxxv">[Pg xxxv]</a></span> Here in +France at least, men knew better how to restrain themselves, and there +were even a few courageous wielders of talented pens who did not hesitate +to use their abilities in favour of their Anglo-Saxon colleague. Hugues +Rebell published in the <i>Mercure de France</i> that <i>Défense d’Oscar Wilde</i>, +the calm and tempered logic of which is still fresh to many minds. A +number of writers and artists even held a meeting of protestation; but, of +course, all this had not the slightest effect on the judicial position of +Wilde. It was generally felt that the ferocious outcry raised against the +unhappy man “who had been found out” was because that man was a poet, and +not so much because he had gone counter to the manners of his time. +Amongst all the mingled shouting and laughter, the arguments for and the +arguments against, the voice of one man was heard stentorian and clear +above all the rest, that voice belonged to Octave Mirbeau, a puissant +master of the French tongue, and a brilliant writer and dramatist. The +following lines of suppressed anger and large-minded charity emanated from +his pen:</p> + +<p>“<i>A great deal has been heard about the paradoxes of Oscar Wilde upon Art, +Beauty, Conscience and Life! Paradoxes they were, it is true, and we know +that some laid themselves open to the charge of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxvi" id="Page_xxxvi">[Pg xxxvi]</a></span>exaggeration, and vaulted +over the threshold of the Forbidden. But after all, what is a paradox if +not, for the most part of the time, the exaltation of an idea in a +striking and superior form? As soon as an idea overleaps the low-level of +ordinary popular understanding, having ceased to drag behind it the +ignoble stumps gathered in the swamps of middle-class morality, and seeks +with strong, steadfast wing, to attain the lofty heights of Philosophy, +Literature or Art, we at once stigmatize it as a paradox, because, unable +ourselves to follow it into those regions which are inaccessible to us, +through the weakness of our organs, and we make haste to scotch it and put +it under ban by flinging after it curse-laden cries of blame and +contempt.</i></p> + +<p><i>And yet, strange as it may seem, progress cannot be made save by way of +paradox, whilst much vaunted common sense—the prized virtue of the +imbecile—perpetuates the humdrum routine of daily life. The truth is, we +refuse to allow anyone to come and outrage our intellectual sluggishness, +or our morality, ready-made like second-hand clothes in a dealer’s shop, +or the stupid security of our sheepish preconceptions.</i></p> + +<p><i>Looked at squarely, that was the veritable crime in the minds of those +who sat in judgment on Oscar Wilde.</i></p> + +<p><i>They could not forgive him for being a thinker, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxvii" id="Page_xxxvii">[Pg xxxvii]</a></span> a man of superior +intellect—and for that self-same reason eminently dangerous to other men. +Wilde is young and has a future before him, and he has proved by the +strong and charming works which he has already given us that he can still +do much more in the cause of Beauty and Art. Must we not then admit that +it is an abominable thing to risk the killing of something far above all +laws, and all morality: the spirit of beauty, for the sake of repressing +acts which are not really punishable</i> per se.</p> + +<p><i>For laws change and morality becomes transformed with the transformations +of time, with the changeing of latitude and longitude, but beauty remains +immaculate, and sheds her light far over the centuries that she alone can +rescue from obscurity.</i>”</p> + +<p>With these magnificent words of one of the great masters of French prose, +we would gladly terminate the present study; but it remains for us to cite +the following from the pen of our lately deceased friend, Hugues Rebell, +who possessed not only acumen and erudition, but employed a brilliant +style and ready wit in the expression of his thoughts:</p> + +<p>“Will a day ever come, wrote he, when the deeds of men will be no more +judged in the name of religion and morality, but from the point of view of +their social importance? When the misdemeanours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxviii" id="Page_xxxviii">[Pg xxxviii]</a></span> of a man of wit and of +genius, or a clever, elegant man of fashion, shall no longer be judged by +the same law as that which condemns a stolid navvy or a dockyard hand? Far +from believing in our much belauded progress, I am inclined alas, to think +that we are really far behind our forefathers in tolerance, and above all +in the ideas that govern our idea of social equality. The downfall of the +sentiment of hierarchy seriously compromises the existence of some of the +best men amongst us. It is not crime merely which is tracked and hounded +down, but all that strays aside for a moment from every-day habits and +customs. So-and-so, because he is not like other people inspires aversion, +even horror on the part of those who take off their hats most respectfully +to the successful swindler; and whilst the Police complacently allow the +perpetration in our great cities of robberies and murders, they make a +raid on the unfortunate bookseller who happens to have stowed away +carefully in his back-shop, a few illustrations where the high deeds and +gestures of Venus are too faithfully reproduced. These paltry persecutions +would only serve to bring a smile to our lips were it not that everyone is +more or less exposed to their arbitrary measures. Men are far less free +to-day than they formerly were, because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxxix" id="Page_xxxix">[Pg xxxix]</a></span> they are too much dominated by a +large number of ignorant and groundless prejudices. Ferocious gaolers +fetter and imprison their minds for their greater overthrow; no longer do +they believe in God, whilst giving implicit faith to vain Science which, +making small account of the great diversity of character and temperament +amongst human beings, holds up for unique example, a healthy and virtuous +individual who never had any real existence except in the imagination of +fools; and whilst no longer following any of the old religions, they +submit themselves with equanimity to the condemnation of so-called Human +Justice, which more often than not is radically venal, and impresses them +far more than did in olden times, the ex-communicating <i>bulls</i> of Popes +who had usurped the authority of God.”</p> + +<p>As for the sentence of hard labour passed upon Wilde, a description would +fail to convey to the inexperienced reader a full idea of its barbarous +severity. Sir Edward Clarke, the counsel for the defense, gave +substantially the following reply to the representative of a Paris +newspaper:</p> + +<p>“My opinion is that Oscar Wilde will work out his sentence. He has +received the heaviest punishment that it was possible to inflict upon him. +You cannot possibly form any notion of the extreme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xl" id="Page_xl">[Pg xl]</a></span> severity of “hard +labour” which is implacable in its <i>régime</i> of absorbing and exigent +regularity.</p> + +<p>“Oscar Wilde, who wore his hair long like the esthete he was, was obliged +to undergo the indignity of having it cut close, and wearing the +sack-cloth suit bearing the broad-arrow mark of the convict. Thrust into a +small narrow cell with only a bed, or rather a wooden plank in guise of a +bed, for all his furniture,—a bed without a matress, and with a bolster +made of wood, this talented man was made to pass the long weary months of +his martyrdom.</p> + +<p>“The “labour” given him to do was absolutely ridiculous for a man of his +bent; first of all for a certain number of hours, he had to sit on a stool +in his cell and disentangle and reduce to small quantities ship-rope of +enormous size used for docking ocean liners, the only instruments allowed +him to effect the work being a nail and his own fingers. The result of +this painful and atrocious penitence was to tear and disfigure his hands +beyond all hope.</p> + +<p>“After that he was conducted into a court where he had to displace a +certain number of cannon-balls, carrying them from one place to another +and arranging them in symmetrical piles. No sooner was this edifying +labour terminated, than he had himself to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xli" id="Page_xli">[Pg xli]</a></span> undo it all and carry back the +cannon-balls one by one to the place from whence he had first taken them.</p> + +<p>“Then finally, he was made to work the tread-mill which is a harder task +than those even that we have endeavoured faintly to describe. Imagine if +you can, an enormous wheel in the interior of which exist cunningly +arranged winding steps. Wilde, mounting on one of the steps, would +immediately set the wheel in motion by the movement of his feet; then the +steps follow each other under the feet in rapid and regular evolution, +thus forcing the legs to a precipitous action which becomes laborious, +enervating, and even maddening after a few minutes. But this enervating +fatigue and suffering the convict is obliged to overcome, whilst +continuing to move his legs for all they are worth, if he would escape +being knocked down, caught up and thrown over, by the revolving movement +of the wheel. This fantastical exercise lasts a quarter of an hour, and +the wretch obliged to indulge in it, is allowed five minutes rest before +the silly game recommences.</p> + +<p>“The convict is always kept apart and not allowed to speak even to his +gaoler except at certain moments. All correspondence and reading is +forbidden, save for the Bible and Prayer book placed at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlii" id="Page_xlii">[Pg xlii]</a></span> the head of the +wooden plank, which serves him for a bed; and relatives are not admitted +to see him excepting at the end of the year.</p> + +<p>“His food consists of meat and black bread, and of course only water is +allowed. The meal-times take place at fixed hours, for naturally he has to +follow a regular <i>régime</i>, in order to accomplish the hard labours that +are incumbent upon him.</p> + +<p>“Many of the convicts have been known to say, on coming out of prison, +that they would have far more preferred to pass ten years in penal +servitude than work out two years of hard labour. The moral suffering men +like Oscar Wilde are forced to undergo is probably superior even to their +physical distress, and I can only repeat that this labour is the severest +which the laws of England impose.”</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>Wilde endured this martyrdom to the bitter end, the only favour allowed +him being permission, towards the end of the time, to read a few books and +to write. He read Dante in his entirety, dwelling longer over the poet’s +description of Hell than anything else, because here he recognized himself +“at home.”</p> + +<p>Before the doors of the gaol had been bolted on him, he wrote with a pen +that had been dipped in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xliii" id="Page_xliii">[Pg xliii]</a></span> colourless ink, letters of tears, sobs and pains, +which were issued to the world only after the unhappy man had winged his +flight for another planet. Those letters bear every mark of the deepest +sincerity. They are not so much literature as the wail of a broken heart, +which had attached itself to the only human affection he believed was +still faithful to him. It is impossible to treat lightly the passionate +anguish which refrains from expressing itself with the same intensity as +the sorrows it had suffered, stricken with infinite sadness at the utter +shipwreck of all hope and the cowardice of the human nature that had +brought him to such low estate.</p> + +<p>That he should have conjured up the happy times he had seen decked out in +all the charming graces of youth, and which smiled back his visage from +the limpid mirror of his marvellously artistic intelligence, is only +perfectly natural; and this evocation of happier times took on a new and +horribly strange beauty, just as the feeblest ray of light stealing +through prison walls gains in puissance from the sheer opacity of +enveloping darkness.</p> + +<p>I will not stop here to enquire whether he found later the consolation he +so much desired, a haven of peace in the friendship of the aristocratic +adolescent, who had unwittingly caused him to become <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xliv" id="Page_xliv">[Pg xliv]</a></span>cast-a-way. It is +highly probable that the bitter words which André Gide heard him utter, +referred to that unfortunate intimacy: “No, he does not understand me; he +can no longer understand me. I repeat to him in each letter; we can no +more follow together the same path; you have yours, and it is certainly +beautiful; and I have mine. His path is the path of Alcibiade, whilst mine +henceforth must be that of St. Francis of Assisi.”</p> + +<p>His last most important work in prose: <i>De Profundis</i>, which reveals him +to us under an entirely different aspect, although, practically always the +same man, shows that he is still engrossed with the perpetual love of +attitudinizing, dreaming perhaps, that in spite of his sorrow and +repentance, he will be able to take up again and sing, although in an +humbler tone, the pagan hymn that had been strangled in his throat. In +this connection, we cannot help thinking of the gesture of the great +Talma, who whilst he lay a-dying, although he knew it not, took the +pendant skin of his thin neck, between his fingers, and said to those who +stood around: “Here is something which would suit finely to make up a +visage for an old Tiberius.”</p> + +<p>It seems to us that the chief characteristic of Wilde’s book is not so +much its admirable accent as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlv" id="Page_xlv">[Pg xlv]</a></span> its subtle irony, through which there seems +to thrill the reply of Destiny to the haughty resolutions that he had +undertaken. It is as though Death itself rose up from each page to sneer +and chuckle at the master-singer; and few things are more bitter on the +part of this poet—who had with his own hands ensepulchred himself as a +willing holocaust to the deceitful gods of factitious Art,—than the +constant appeals that he makes to Nature. The song no longer rings with +the old regal note; there is none of the trepidating joy of a Whitman, or +the yielding sweetness of an Emerson; our ear detects only the melopœia +of a heart which had been wounded in its innermost recess.</p> + +<p>“<i>I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving +prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, +and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold +of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes so that +all the air shall be Arabia for me.</i>”<a name='fna_12' id='fna_12' href='#f_12'><small>[12]</small></a></p> + +<p>These are the words of a convalescent; of a man newly risen from a bed of +sickness anticipating a richer and fuller life, unknowing that the +uplifted hand of Death suspended just above him, was destined to strike +him down at brief delay.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlvi" id="Page_xlvi">[Pg xlvi]</a></span>In the darkness of his prison cell, he dreams of the mysterious herbs that +he will find in the realms of Nature; of the balms that he shall ferret +out amongst the plants of the earth, and which will bring peace for his +anguish, and deep-seated joy for the suffering that racked his brain.</p> + +<p>“<i>But Nature, whose sweet rains fall on the unjust and just alike, will +have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose +silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that +I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind +over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse +me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.</i>”<a name='fna_13' id='fna_13' href='#f_13'><small>[13]</small></a></p> + +<p>In presence of this beautiful passage, it is painful to remember how his +hopes were fated to be shattered by the cruellest of disappointments, and +how he was doomed to die in the grey desolation of a poverty-haunted room.</p> + +<p>Before drawing this notice to a close, it were not unfitting to recall +another name, borne by a Poet of wayward genius, who likewise wandered +astray in a forest of more than Dantean darkness, because the right way he +had for ever lost from view. That Poet was a poet of France, and the voice +of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlvii" id="Page_xlvii">[Pg xlvii]</a></span> glory and the echo of the songs he chanted resounded with that +proud and melodious note of genius which can never weary human ears. +Although this poet led a life which can be compared only to the life of +Oscar Wilde, he belonged to an order of mentality which differs too +greatly in its essential features to allow the accidents of the career of +the two men being used as a basis for comparing them closely together on +the intellectual plane.</p> + +<p>Verlaine belonged to that race of poets who distinguish themselves by +their perfect spontaneity; he was a veritable poet of instinct, and had +heard voices which no other mortal had heard before him on earth. In place +of the metallic verses of his predecessors, the verses that for the most +part are spoken by linguistic artists, he created a sort of ethereal +music, a song so sweet and so penetrating that it haunts us eternally like +the low, passionate, whisperings of a lover’s voice. He gave us more than +royal largesse of a wonderful and delicious soul, that had no part or lot +in time, a music that was created for his soul alone; and we have +willingly forgotten many a haughtier voice for the bewitching strains that +this baptised faun played for us with such artless joy on his forest-grown +reed.</p> + +<p>The English poet was more complex and perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlviii" id="Page_xlviii">[Pg xlviii]</a></span> less sheerly human; and +even his errors have no other origin than the perpetual effort to astonish +us; whilst above all, that which staggers us most and stirs us so +profoundly is that these self-same errors, which had come into life under +such innocent conditions, became terribly real in virtue of that imperious +law which compels certain minds to render their dreams incarnate.</p> + +<p>As for his work, however finely polished, however exquisite it may be and +undoubtedly is, we have to confess that it has no power to move our souls +into high passion and lofty endeavour; although it might easily have +sufficed to conquer celebrity for more than one ambitious literary +craftsman. But we feel, with regard to Wilde, that we had a legitimate +right to insist on the accomplishment of far greater things, a more +sincere and genuine output, and are so much more dissatisfied because we +clearly see the great discord between the man who palpitated with intense +life, and the esthetic dandy whose cleverness overreached itself when he +tried to work out that life on admittedly artificial lines.</p> + +<p>This extraordinary divorce between intelligence and will-power was that +which gave rise to the striking drama of Wilde’s career; albeit the word +drama looks strange and out of place, if applied only to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xlix" id="Page_xlix">[Pg xlix]</a></span> +sorrow-filled period that crowned with thorns the latter end of his +brilliant existence, if it be used for no other reason than to +particularize the great catastrophe that took place in the sight of all +the world. The fact is, the man’s entire life was one perpetual drama. +Throughout the whole course of his existence, he persistently sought after +and that with impunity, all sorts of excitants that could at last no +longer be disguised under the name of experiences—and no doubt, others +more terrible still that fall under no human laws, would have come finally +to swell the ranks of their forerunners—and then, had the hand of Destiny +not arrested him in his course, he would have wound up by descending so +low that the artistic life of his soul would have been forever +extinguished.</p> + +<p>That, when all is said and done, would have been the veritable, the +irremediable tragedy.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, royal intellects such as these, can never utterly die, and +therein consists their greatest chastisement. Spasmodic movements agitate +them, revealing beneath their mendacious laughter the secret agony of +their souls; and we are suddenly called upon to witness the heart-rending +spectacle of the slow death-agony of a haughty, talented poet, a Petronius +self-poisoned through fear of Cæsar or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_l" id="Page_l">[Pg l]</a></span> a Wilde whom a vicious and +over-wrought Public had only half assassinated, raising his poor, glazed +eyes towards the marvellous Light of Truth, whose glorious vision, we know +by the sure voice that comes “from the depths,” he had caught at last....</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>Oscar Wilde had desired to live a pagan’s free and untramelled life in +Twentieth-century England, forgetful of the enormous fact that no longer +may we live pagan-wise, for the shadow of the Cross has shed a steadily +increasing gloom over the conditions that enlivened the joyous existence +of olden times.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">C. G.</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img02.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h2>The Trial of Oscar Wilde.</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p class="note">“In all men’s hearts a slumbering swine lies low”, says the French poet; +so come ye, whose porcine instincts have never been awakened, or if +rampant successfully hidden, and hurl the biggest, sharpest stones you can +lay your hands on at your wretched, degraded, humiliated brother, <i>who has +been found out</i>.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img03.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="title">The Trial of Oscar Wilde</p> + + +<p><br />The life and death of Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, <i>poseur</i> and convict, +can only fittingly be summarised as a tragedy. Every misspent life is a +tragedy more or less; but how much more tragic appear the elements of +despair and disaster when the victim to his own vices is a man of genius +exercising a considerable influence upon the thought and culture of his +day, and possessing every advantage which birth, education, talent and +station can bestow? Oscar Wilde was more than a clever and original +thinker. He was the inventor of a certain literary style, and, though his +methods, showy and eccentric as they were, lent themselves readily to +imitation, none of his followers could approach their “Master” in the +particular mode which he had made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> his own. There can be two opinions as +to the merits of his plays. There can be only one judgment as to their +daring and audacious originality. Of the ordinary and the commonplace +Wilde had a horror, which with him was almost a religion. He was +unmercifully chaffed throughout America when he appeared in public in a +light green suit adorned with a large sunflower; but he did not don this +outrageous costume because he preferred such startling clothing. He +adopted the dress in order to be original and assumed it because no other +living man was likely to be so garbed. He was consumed, in fact, with +overpowering vanity. He was possessed of a veritable demon of self-esteem. +He ate strange foods, and drank unusual liquors in order to be unlike any +of his contemporaries. His eccentricities of dress continued to the end. +On the first night of one of his plays—it was a brilliant triumph—he was +called upon by an enthusiastic audience for the customary speech. He was +much exercised in his mind as to what he could say that would be +unconventional and sensational. No mere platitudes or banalities for the +author of “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” who made a god of the spirit of Epigram +and almost canonized the art of Repartee. He said, “Ladies and Gentlemen: +I am glad you <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>like my play. I like it very much myself too,” which, if +candid, was hardly the remark of a modest and retiring author. The leopard +cannot change his spots and neither can the lion his skin. Even in his +beautiful book, “De Profundis”—surely the most extraordinary volume of +recent years—the man’s character is writ so plainly that he who runs may +read. Man of letters, man of fashion, man of hideous vices, Oscar Wilde +remained to the last moment of his murdered life, a self-conscious +egotist. “Gentlemen,” he gasped on his death-bed, hearing the doctors +express misgivings as to their fees, “it would appear that I am dying +beyond my means!” It was a brilliant sally and one can picture the +startled faces of the medical attendants. A genius lay a-dying and a +genius he remained till the breath of life departed.</p> + +<p>Genius we know to be closely allied to insanity and it were charitable to +describe this man as mad, besides approaching very nearly to the truth. +Something was out of gear in that finely attuned mind. Some thorn there +was among the intellectual roses which made him what he was. He pined for +strange passions, new sensations. His was the temperament of the Roman +sybarite. He often sighed for a return of the days when vice was deified. +He spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> of the glories of the Devastation, the awful woman and the +Alexandrian school at which little girls and young boys were instructed in +all the most secret and unthinkable forms of vice. Modern women satisfied +him not. Perverted passions consumed the fire of his being. He had had +children of his wife, but sexual intercourse between him and that most +unfortunate lady was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. +They had their several rooms. On many occasions Wilde actually brought the +companions of his abominable rites and sinful joys to his own home, and +indulged in his frightful propensities beneath the roof of the house which +sheltered his own sons and their most unhappy mother. Could the man +capable of this atrocity possess a normal mind? Can Oscar Wilde, who +committed moral suicide and made of himself a social pariah, be regarded +as a sane man? London society is not so strict nor straight-laced that it +will not forgive much laxity in its devoted votaries. Rumour had been busy +with the name of Oscar Wilde for a long time before the whole awful truth +became known. He was seen, constantly, at theatres and restaurants with +persons in no way fit to be his associates and these persons were not +girls or women. He paraded his shameful friendships <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>and flaunted his +villainous companions in society’s face. People began to look askance at +the famous wit. Doors began to be closed to him. He was ostracised by all +but the most Bohemian coteries. But even those who were still proud to +rank him among their friends did not know how far he had wilfully drawn +himself into the web of disgrace. Much that seemed strange and +unaccountable was attributed to his well-known love of pose. Men shrugged +their shoulders and declared that “Wilde meant no harm. It was his +vainglorious way of showing his contempt for the opinion of the world. Men +of such parts could not be judged by ordinary standards. Intellectually +Wilde was fit to mix with the immortals. If he preferred the society of +miserable, beardless, stunted youths destitute alike of decency or +honour—it was no affair of theirs,” and so on <i>ad nauseam</i>. Meanwhile, +heedless of the warnings of friends and the sneers of foes, Wilde went his +own way—to destruction.</p> + +<p>He was addicted to the vice and crime of sodomy long before he formed a +“friendship” which was destined to involve him in irretrievable ruin. In +London, he met a younger son of the eccentric Marquis of Queensbury, Lord +Alfred Douglas by name. This youth was being educated at <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>Cambridge. He +was of peculiar temperament and talented in a strong, frothy style. He was +good-looking in an effeminate, lady-like way. He wrote verse. His poems +not being of a manner which could be acceptable to a self-respecting +publication, his efforts appeared in an eccentric and erratic magazine +which was called “The Chameleon.” In this precious serial appeared a +“poem” from the pen of Lord Alfred dedicated to his father in these filial +words: “To the Man I Hate.”</p> + +<p>Oscar Wilde at once developed an extraordinary and dangerous interest in +this immature literary egg. A being of his own stamp, after his own heart, +was Lord Alfred Douglas. The love of women delighted him not. The +possession of a young girl’s person had no charm for him. He yearned for +higher flights in the realms of love! He sought unnatural affection. +Wilde, experienced in all the symptoms of a disordered sexual fancy, +contrived to exercise a remarkable and sinister influence over this youth. +Again and again and again did his father implore Lord Alfred Douglas to +separate himself from the tempter. Lord Queensberry threatened, persuaded, +bribed, urged, cajoled: all to no purpose. Wilde and his son were +constantly together. The nature of their friendship became the talk of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>town. It was proclaimed from the housetops. The Marquis, determined to +rescue him if it were humanly possible, horsewhipped his son in a public +thoroughfare and was threatened with a summons for assault. On one +occasion—it was the opening night of one of the Wilde plays—he sent the +author a bouquet of choice—vegetables! Three or four times he wrote to +him begging him to cancel his friendship with Lord Alfred. Once he called +at the house in Tite Street and there was a terrible scene. The Marquis +fumed; Wilde laughed. He assured his Lordship that only at his son’s own +request would he break off the association which existed between them. The +Marquis, driven to desperation, called Wilde a disgusting name. The +latter, with a show of wrath, ordered the peer from his door and he was +obliged to leave.</p> + +<p>At all costs and hazards, at the risk of any pain and grief to himself, +Lord Queensberry was determined to break off the disgraceful <i>liaison</i>. He +stopped his son’s allowance, but Wilde had, at that time, plenty of money +and his purse was his friend’s. At last the father went to the length of +leaving an insulting message for Oscar Wilde at that gentleman’s club. He +called there and asked for Wilde. The clerk at the enquiry office stated +that Mr. Wilde was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> not on the premises. The Marquis then produced a card +and wrote upon it in pencil these words, “Oscar Wilde is a Bugger.” This +elegant missive he directed to be handed to the author when he should next +appear at the club.</p> + +<p>From this card—Lord Queensberry’s last resource—grew the whole great +case, which amazed and horrified the world in 1895. Oscar Wilde was +compelled, however reluctantly, to take the matter up. Had he remained +quiescent under such a public affront, his career in England would have +been at an end. He bowed to the inevitable and a libel action was +prepared.</p> + +<p>One is often compelled to wonder if he foresaw the outcome. One asks +oneself if he realized what defeat in this case would portend. The stakes +were desperately high. He risked, in a Court of Law, his reputation, his +position, his career and even his freedom. Did he know what the end to it +all would be?</p> + +<p>Whatever Wilde’s fears and expectations were, his opponent did not +under-estimate the importance of the issue. If he could not induce a jury +of twelve of his fellow-countrymen to believe that the plaintiff was what +he had termed him, he, the Marquis of Queensberry, would be himself +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>disgraced. Furthermore, there would, in the event of failure, be heavy +damages to pay and the poor man was not over rich. Wilde had many and +powerful friends. For reasons which it is not necessary to enlarge upon, +Lord Queensberry was not liked or respected by his own order. The ultimate +knowledge that he was a father striving to save a loved son from infamy +changed all that, and his Lordship met with nothing but sympathy from the +general public in the latter stages of the great case.</p> + +<p>Sir Edward Clarke was retained for the plaintiff. It is needless to refer +to the high estimation in which this legal and political luminary is held +by all classes of society. From first to last he devoted himself to the +lost cause of Oscar Wilde with a whole-hearted devotion which was beyond +praise. The upshot of the libel action must have pained and disgusted him; +yet he refused to abandon his client, and, in the two criminal trials, +defended him with a splendid loyalty and with the marked ability that +might be expected from such a counsel. The acute, energetic, silver-spoken +Mr. Carson led on the other side. It is not necessary to make more than +passing mention of the conspicuous skill with which the able lawyer +conducted the case for the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>defendant. Even the gifted plaintiff himself +cut a sorry figure when opposed to Mr. Carson.</p> + +<p>Extraordinary interest was displayed in the action; and the courts were +besieged on each day that the trial lasted. Remarkable revelations were +expected and they were indeed forthcoming. Enormous pains had been taken +to provide a strong defence and it was quite clear almost after the first +day that Wilde’s case would infallibly break down. He made some +astonishing admissions in the witness-box and even disgusted many of his +friends by the flippancy and affected unconcern of his replies to +questions of the most damaging nature. He, apparently, saw nothing +indecorous in facts which must shock any other than the most depraved. He +saw nothing disgusting in friendships of a kind to which only one +construction could be put. He gave expensive dinners to ex-barmen and the +like: ignorant, brutish young fools—because they amused him! He presented +youths of questionable moral character with silver cigarette-cases because +their society was pleasant! He took young men to share his bedroom at +hotels and saw nothing remarkable in such proceedings. He gave sums of +thirty pounds to ill-bred youths—accomplished blackmailers—because they +were hard-up and he felt they <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>did not deserve poverty! He assisted other +young men of a character equally undesirable, to go to America and +received letters from them in which they addressed him as “Dear Oscar,” +and sent him their love. In short, his own statements damned him. Out of +his own mouth—and he posing all the time—was he convicted. The case +could have but one ending. Sir Edward Clarke—pained, surprised, +shocked—consented to a verdict for the Marquis of Queensberry and the +great libel case was at an end. The defendant left the court proudly +erect, conscious that he had been the means of saving his son and of +eradicating from society a canker which had been rotting it unnoticed, +except by a few, for a very long time. Oscar Wilde left the court a ruined +and despised man. People—there were one or two left who were loyal to +him—turned aside from him with loathing. He had nodded to six or seven +friends in court on the last day of the trial and turned ashen pale when +he observed their averted looks. All was over for him. The little +supper-parties with a few choice wits; the glorious intoxication of +first-night applause; the orgies in the infamous dens of his boon +companions—all these were no more for him. Oscar Wilde, <i>bon vivant</i>, man +of letters, arbiter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> of literary fashion, stood at the bar of public +opinion, a wretch guilty of crimes against which the body recoils and the +mind revolts. Oh! what a falling-off was there!</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>If any reader would care to know the impression made upon the opinion of +the London world by the revelations of this lawsuit, let him turn to the +“Daily Telegraph” of the morning following the dramatic result of the +trial. In that great newspaper appeared a leading article in reference to +Oscar Wilde, the terms of which, though deserved, were most scathing, +denunciatory, and bitter. Yet a general feeling of relief permeated the +regret which was universally expressed at so terrible a termination of a +distinguished career. Society was at no pains to hide its relief that the +Augean stable has been cleansed and that a terrible scandal had been +exorcised from its midst.</p> + +<p>It now becomes a necessary, albeit painful task, to describe the +happenings incidental or subsequent to the Wilde & Queensberry +proceedings. It was certain that matters could not be allowed to rest as +they were. A jury in a public court had convinced themselves that Lord +Queensberry’s allegations were strictly true and the duty of the Public +Prosecutor <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>was truly clear. The law is not, or should not be, a respector +of persons, and Oscar Wilde, genius though he were, was not less amenable +to the law than would be any ignorant boor suspected of similar crimes. +The machinery of legal process was set in action and the arrest of Wilde +followed as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>A prominent name in the libel action against Lord Queensberry had been +that of one Alfred Taylor. This individual, besides being himself guilty +of the most infamous practices, had, it would appear, for long acted as a +sort of precursor for the Apostle of Culture and his capture took place at +nearly the same time as that of his principal. The latter was arrested at +a certain quiet and fashionable hotel whither he had gone with one or two +yet loyal friends after the trial for libel. His arrest was not +unexpected, of course; but it created a tremendous sensation and vast +crowds collected at Bow Street Police Station and in the vicinity during +the preliminary examinations before the Magistrate. The prisoner Wilde +bore himself with some show of fortitude, but it was clear that the iron +had already entered into his soul and his old air of jaunty indifference +to the opinion of the world had plainly given way to a mental anxiety +which could not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>altogether be hidden, though it could be controlled. On +one occasion as, fur-coated, silk-hatted, he entered the dock, he nodded +familiarly to the late Sir Augustus Harris, but that magnate of the +theatrical world deliberately turned his back upon the playwriting +celebrity. The evidence from first to last was followed with the most +intense interest and the end of it was that Oscar Wilde was fully +committed for trial.</p> + +<p>The case came on at the Old Bailey during the month of April, 1895, and it +was seen that the interest had in no wise abated. Mr. Justice Charles +presided and he was accompanied by the customary retinue of Corporation +dignitaries. The court was crowded in every part and hundreds of people +were unsuccessful in efforts to obtain admission. A reporter for a Sunday +newspaper wrote: “Wilde’s personal appearance has changed little since his +committal from Bow Street. He wears the same clothes and continues to +carry the same hat. He looks haggard and worn, and his long hair that was +so carefully arranged when last he was in the court, though not then in +the dock, is now dishevelled. Taylor, on the other hand, still neatly +dressed, appears not to have suffered from his enforced confinement. But +he no longer attempts to regard <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>the proceedings with that indifference +which he affected when first before the magistrate.”</p> + +<p>As soon as Wilde and his confederate took their places in the dock, each +held a whispered consultation with his counsel and the Clerk of Arraigns +then read over the indictments. Both prisoners pleaded “Not guilty,” +Taylor speaking in a loud and confident tone. Wilde spoke quietly, looked +very grave and gave attentive heed to the formal opening proceedings.</p> + +<p>Mr. C. F. Gill led for the prosecution and he rose amidst a breathless +silence, to outline the main facts of the case. After begging the jury to +dismiss from their minds anything that they might have heard or read in +regard to the affair, and to abandon all prejudice on either side, he +described at some length the circumstances which led up to the present +prosecution. He spoke of the arrest and committal of the Marquis of +Queensberry on a charge of criminal libel and of the collapse of the case +for the prosecution when the case was heard at the Old Bailey. He alluded +to the subsequent inevitable arrest of Wilde and Taylor and of the +committal of both prisoners to take their trial at the present Sessions.</p> + +<p>Wilde, he said, was well-known as a dramatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> author and generally, as a +literary man of unusual attainments. He had resided, until his arrest, at +a house in Tite Street, Chelsea, where his wife lived with the children of +the marriage. Taylor had had numerous addresses, but for the time covered +by these charges, had dwelt in Little College Street, and afterwards in +Chapel Street. Although Wilde had a house in Tite Street, he had at +different times occupied rooms in St. James’s Place, the Savoy Hotel and +the Albermarle Hotel. It would be shown that Wilde and Taylor were in +league for certain purposes and Mr. Gill then explained the specific +allegations against the prisoners. Wilde, he asserted, had not hesitated, +soon after his first introduction to Taylor, to explain to him to what +purpose he wished to put their acquaintance. Taylor was familiar with a +number of young men who were in the habit of giving their bodies, or +selling them, to other men for the purpose of sodomy. It appeared that +there was a number of youths engaged in this abominable traffic and that +one and all of them were known to Taylor, who went about and sought out +for them men of means who were willing to pay heavily for the indulgence +of their favorite vice. Mr. Gill endeavoured to show that Taylor himself +was given to sodomy and that he had himself <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>indulged in these filthy +practices with the same youths as he agreed to procure for Wilde. The +visits of the latter to Taylor’s rooms were touched upon and the +circumstances attending these visits were laid bare. On nearly every +occasion when Wilde called, a young man was present with whom he committed +the act of sodomy. The names of various young men connected with these +facts were mentioned in turn and the case of the two Parkers was given as +a sample of many others on which the learned counsel preferred to dwell +with less minuteness.</p> + +<p>When Taylor gave up his rooms in Little College Street and took up his +abode in Chapel Street, he left behind him a number of compromising +papers, which would be produced in evidence against the prisoners; and he +should submit in due course that there was abundant corroboration of the +statements of the youths involved. Mr. Gill pointed out the peculiarities +in the case of Frederick Atkins. This youth had accompanied the prisoner +Wilde to Paris, and there could be no doubt whatever that the latter had +in the most systematic way endeavoured to influence this young man’s mind +towards vicious courses and had endeavoured to mould him to his own +depraved will. The relations which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> existed between the prisoner and +another lad, one Alfred Wood, were also fully described and the learned +counsel made special allusion to the remarkable manner in which Wilde had +lavished money upon Wood prior to the departure of that youth for America.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gill referred to yet another of Wilde’s youthful familiars—namely: +Sidney Mavor—in regard to whom, he said, the jury must form their own +conclusions after they had heard the evidence. Among other things to which +he would ask them to direct careful attention was a letter written in +pencil by Taylor, the prisoner, to this youth. The communication ran: +“Dear Sid, I cannot wait any longer. Come at once and see Oscar at Tite +Street. I am, Yours ever, Alfred Taylor.” The use of the christian name of +Wilde in so familiar a way suggested the nature of the acquaintance which +existed between Mavor and Wilde, who was old enough to be his father. In +conclusion, Mr. Gill asked the jury to give the case, painful as it must +necessarily be, their most earnest and careful consideration.</p> + +<p>Both Wilde and Taylor paid keen attention to the opening statement. They +exchanged no word together and it was observed that Wilde kept as far +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>apart from his companion in the dock, as he possibly could.</p> + +<p>The first witness called was Charles Parker. He proved to be a rather +smartly-attired youth, fresh-coloured, and of course, clean-shaven. He was +very pale and appeared uneasy. He stated that he had first met Taylor at +the St. James’ Restaurant. The latter had got into conversation with him +and the young fellows with him, and had insisted on “standing” drinks. +Conversation of a certain nature passed between them. Taylor called +attention to the prostitutes who frequent Piccadilly Circus and remarked: +“I can’t understand sensible men wasting their money on painted trash like +that. Many do, though. But there are a few who know better. Now, you could +get money in a certain way easily enough, if you cared to.” The witness +had formerly been a valet and he was at this time out of employment. He +understood to what Taylor alluded and made a coarse reply.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I am obliged to ask you what it was you actually said.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I do not like to say.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You were less squeamish at the time, I daresay. I ask you for +the words.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I said that if any old gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +with money took a fancy to me, I was agreeable. I was terribly hard up.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“What did Taylor say?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He laughed and said that men far cleverer, richer and better +than I preferred things of that kind.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Did Taylor mention the prisoner Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not at that time. He arranged to meet me again and I +consented.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Where did you first meet Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“At the Solferino Restaurant.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Tell me what transpired.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Taylor said he could introduce me to a man who was good for +plenty of money. Wilde came in later and I was formally introduced. Dinner +was served for four in a private room.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Who made the fourth?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“My brother, William Parker. I had promised Taylor that he +should accompany me.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“What happened during dinner?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“There was plenty of champagne and brandy and coffee. We all +partook of it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Of what nature was the conversation?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“General, at first. Nothing was then said as to the purposes for +which we had come together.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“And then?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Wilde invited me to go to his rooms at the Savoy Hotel. Only he +and I went, leaving my brother and Taylor behind. Wilde and I went in a +cab. At the Savoy we went to his—Wilde’s—sitting-room.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“More drink was offered you there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes; we had liqueurs.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Let us know what occurred.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He committed the act of sodomy upon me.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“With your consent?”</p> + +<p>The witness did not reply. Further examined, he said that Wilde on that +occasion had given him two pounds and asked him to call upon him again a +week later. He did so, the same thing occurred and Wilde then gave him +three pounds. The witness next described a visit to Little College Street, +to Taylor’s rooms. Wilde used to call there and the same thing occurred as +at the Savoy. For a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>fortnight or three weeks the witness lodged in +Park-Walk, close to Taylor’s house. There too he was visited by Wilde. The +witness gave a detailed account of the disgusting proceedings there. He +said, “I was asked by Wilde to imagine that I was a woman and that he was +my lover. I had to keep up this illusion. I used to sit on his knees and +he used to play with my privates as a man might amuse himself with a +girl.” Wilde insisted in this filthy make-believe being kept up. Wilde +gave him a silver cigarette case and a gold ring, both of which articles +he pawned. The prisoner said, “I don’t suppose boys are different to girls +in acquiring presents from them who are fond of them.” He remembered Wilde +having rooms at St. James’s Place and the witness visited him there.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Where else have you been with Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“To Kettner’s Restaurant.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“What happened there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“We dined there. We always had a lot of wine. Wilde would talk +of poetry and art during dinner, and of the old Roman days.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“On one occasion you proceeded from Kettner’s to Wilde’s +house?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes. We went to Tite Street. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>It was very late at night. Wilde +let himself and me in with a latchkey. I remained the night, sleeping with +the prisoner, and he himself let me out in the early morning before anyone +was about.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Where else have you visited this man?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“At the Albemarle Hotel. The same thing happened then.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Where did your last interview take place?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I last saw Wilde in Trafalgar Square about nine months ago. He +was in a hansom and saw me. He alighted from the hansom.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“What did he say?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He said, ‘Well, you are looking as pretty as ever.’ He did not +ask me to go anywhere with him then.”</p> + +<p>The witness went on to say that during the period of his acquaintance with +Wilde, he frequently saw Taylor, and the latter quite understood and was +aware of the motive of the acquaintance. At the Little College Street +rooms he had frequently seen Wood, Atkins and Scaife, and he knew that +these youths were “in the same line, at the same game,” as himself. In the +August previous to this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> trial he was at a certain house in Fitzroy +Square. Orgies of the most disgraceful kind used to happen there. The +police made a raid upon the premises and he and the Taylors were arrested. +From that time he had ceased all relationship with the latter. Since that +event he had enlisted, and while away in the country he was seen by +someone representing Lord Queensberry and made a statement. The evidence +of this witness created a great sensation in court, and it was increased +when Sir Edward Clarke rose to cross-examine. This began after the +adjournment.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“When were you seen in the country in reference to +this case?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Towards the end of March.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Who saw you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Mr. Russell.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Was there no examination before that?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did you state at Bow Street that you received £30 not to say +anything about a certain case?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Now, I do not ask you to give me the name of the gentleman +from whom this <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>money was extorted, but I ask you to give me the name of +the agents.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Wood & Allen.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Where were you living then?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“In Cranford Street.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“When did the incident occur in consequence of which you +received that £30?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“About two weeks before.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Where?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“At Camera Square.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“I’ll leave that question. You say positively that Mr. Wilde +committed sodomy with you at the Savoy?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“But you have been in the habit of accusing other gentlemen +of the same offence?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Never, unless it has been done.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“I submit that you blackmail gentlemen?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No, Sir, I have accepted money, but it has been offered to me +to pay me for the offence. I have been solicited. I have never suggested +this offence to gentlemen.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Was +the door locked during the time you describe?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I do not think so. It was late and the prisoner told the waiter +not to come up again.”</p> + +<p>The next witness was William Parker. This youth corroborated his brother’s +evidence. He said he was present at the dinner with Taylor and Wilde +described by the last witness. Wilde paid all his attention to +his—witness’s—brother. He, Wilde, often fed his brother off his own fork +or out of his own spoon. His brother accepted a preserved cherry from +Wilde’s own mouth—he took it into his and this trick was repeated three +or four times. His brother went off with the prisoner to his rooms at the +Savoy and the witness remained behind with Taylor, who said, “Your brother +is lucky. Oscar does not care what he pays if he fancies a chap.”</p> + +<p>Ellen Grant was the landlady of the house in Little College Street at +which Taylor lodged. She gave evidence as to the visits of various lords +and stated that Wilde was a fairly frequent caller. He would remain for +hours and one of the lads was generally closeted with him. Once she tried +the door and found it locked. She heard whispering and laughing and her +suspicions were aroused though she did not like to take steps in the +matter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>Lucy Rumsby, who let a room to Charles Parker at Chelsea, gave rather +similar evidence, but Wilde does not appear to have called there more than +once and that occasion it was to take out Parker, who went away with him.</p> + +<p>Sophia Gray, Taylor’s landlady in Chapel Street, also gave evidence. She +amused the court by the emphatic and outspoken way in which she explained +that she had no idea of the nature of what was going on. Several young men +were constantly calling upon Taylor and were alone with him for a long +time, but he used to say that they were clerks for whom he hoped to find +employment. The prisoner Wilde was a frequent visitor.</p> + +<p>But all this latter evidence paled as regards sinister significance beside +that furnished by a young man named Alfred Wood. This young wretch +admitted to acts of the grossest indecency with Oscar Wilde. He said, +“Wilde saw his influence to induce me to consent. He made me nearly drunk. +He used to put his hand inside my trousers beneath the table at dinner and +compel me to do the same to him. Afterwards, I used to lie on a sofa with +him. It was a long time, however, before I would allow him to actually do +the act of sodomy. He gave me money to go to America.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>Sir Edward Clarke submitted this self-disgraced witness to a very vigorous +cross-examination.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What have you been doing since your return from America?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Well, I have not done much.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Have you done anything?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have had no regular employment.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“I thought not.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I could not get anything to do.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“As a matter of fact, you have had no respectable work for +over three years?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Well, no.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did not you, in conjunction with Allen, succeed in getting +£300 from a gentleman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes; but he was guilty with Allen.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“How much did you receive?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I advised Allen how to proceed. He gave me £130.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Who else got any of this money?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Parker. Charles Parker got some and also Wood.”</p> + +<p>Thos. Price was the next witness. This man was a waiter at a private hotel +in St. James’s and he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>testified to Wilde’s visits there and to the number +of young men, “of quite inferior station,” who called to see him. Then +came Frank Atkins, whose evidence is given in full.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“How old are you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am 20 years old.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“What is your business?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have been a billiard-marker.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“You are doing nothing now?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“Who introduced you to Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I was introduced to him by Schwabe in November, 1892.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“Have you met Lord Alfred Douglas?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have. I dined with him and Wilde on several occasions. They +pressed me to go to Paris.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“You went with them?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“You told Wilde on one occasion while in Paris that you had +spent the previous night with a woman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No. I had arranged to meet a girl at the Moulin Rouge, and +Wilde told me not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> go. However, I did go, but the woman was not there.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“You returned to London with Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“Did he give you money?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He gave me a cigarette-case.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“You were then the best of friends?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He called me Fred and I addressed him as Oscar. We liked each +other, but there was no harm in it.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“Did you visit Wilde on your return?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, at Tite Street. Wilde also called upon me at Osnaburgh +Street. On the latter occasion one of the Parkers was present.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Avory</span>.—“You know most of these youths. Do you know Sidney Mavor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Only by sight.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“Were you ill at Osnaburgh Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, I had small-pox and was removed to the hospital ship. +Before I went I wrote to Parker asking him to write to Wilde and request +him to come and see me, and he did so.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You +are sure you returned from Paris with Mr. Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did any impropriety ever take place between you and Wilde?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Never.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Have you ever lived with a man named Burton?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What was he?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“A bookmaker.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Have you and this Burton been engaged in the business of +blackmailing?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have a professional name. I have sometimes called myself +Denny.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Has this man Burton, to your knowledge, obtained money from +gentlemen by accusing them or threatening to accuse them of certain +offences?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not to my knowledge.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Not in respect to a certain Birmingham gentleman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“That being your answer, I must particularize. On June 9th, +1891, did you and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> Burton obtain a large sum of money from a Birmingham +gentleman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Certainly not.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Then I ask you if in June, ’91, Burton did not take rooms +for you in Tatchbrook Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes; and he lived with me there.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You were in the habit of taking men home with you then?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not for the purposes of blackmail.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Well, for indecent purposes.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Give me the names of two or three of the people whom you +have taken home to that address?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I cannot. I forget them.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Now I am going to ask you a direct question, and I ask you +to be careful in your reply. Were you and Burton ever taken to Rochester +Road Police Station?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Well, was Burton?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think not—at least, he was not, to my knowledge.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did the Birmingham gentleman +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>give to Burton a cheque for +£200 drawn in the name of S. Denis or Denny, your own name?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not to my knowledge.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“About two years ago, did you and someone else go to the +Victoria Hotel with two American gentlemen?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No, I did not. Never.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“I think you did. Be careful in your replies. Did Burton +extort money from these gentlemen?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have never been there at all.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Have you ever been to Anderton’s Hotel and stayed a night +with a gentleman, whom you threatened the next morning with exposure?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have not.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“When did you go abroad with Burton?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think in February, 1892.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“When did you last go with him abroad?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Last spring.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“How long were you away?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Oh! about a month.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Where did you stay?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“We went to Nice and stayed at Gaze’s Hotel.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You were having a holiday?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Which you continued with business in your usual way?”</p> + +<p>The witness did not reply.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What were you and Burton doing at Nice?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Simply enjoying ourselves.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“During this visit of enjoyment you and Burton fell out, I +think.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Oh, dear, no!”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Yet you separated from this Burton after that visit?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I gave up being a bookmaker’s clerk.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What name did Burton use in the ring?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Watson was his betting name.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did you blackmail a gentleman at Nice?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Are you sure there was no quarrel between you and Burton at +Nice?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“There may have been a little one, but I don’t remember anything +of the kind.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>Mr. Grain then put some questions to the Witness.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Did you go to Scarbro’ about a year ago?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Did Burton go with you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“What was your business there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I was engaged professionally. I sang at the Aquarium there.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Did you get acquainted while there with a foreign gentleman, +a Count?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not acquainted.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Mr. Grain wrote a name on a piece of paper and handed it up +to the witness, who read it.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Do you know that gentleman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No, I heard his name mentioned at Scarborough.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Then you never spoke to him?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Was not a large sum—about £500—paid to you or Burton by +that gentleman about this time last year?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Had +you any engagement at the Scarborough Aquarium?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“How much did you receive a week?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I was paid four pounds ten shillings.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“How long were you there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Three weeks.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Have you ever lived in Buckingham Palace Road?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Grain wrote at this stage on another slip of paper and it was handed +up to the witness-box.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Look at that piece of paper. Do you know the name written +there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I never saw it before.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“When were you living in Buckingham Palace Road?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“In 1892.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Do you remember being introduced to an elderly man in the +City?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Did you take him to your room, permit him to commit sodomy +with and upon you, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>rob him of his pocket-book and threaten him with +exposure if he complained?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Did you threaten to extort money from him because he had +agreed to accompany you home for a foul purpose?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Did you ever stay at a place in the suburbs on the South +Western Railway with Burton?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“What other addresses have you had in London during the last +three years?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“None but those I have told you.”</p> + +<p>This concluded the evidence of this witness for the time being.</p> + +<p>Mary Applegate, employed as a housekeeper at Osnaburgh Street, said Atkins +used to lodge there and left about a month ago. Wilde visited him at this +house on two occasions that she was cognisant of. She stated that one of +the housemaids came to her and complained of the state of the sheets of +the bed in which Atkins slept after Wilde’s first visit. The sheets were +stained in a peculiar way. It may be explained here, in order to make the +witness’s evidence understood, that the sodomistic act has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> much the same +effect as an enema inserted up the rectum. There is an almost immediate +discharge, though not, of course, to the extent produced by the enema +operation.</p> + +<p>The next witness called was Sidney Mavor, a smooth-faced young fellow with +dark hair and eyes. He stated that he was now in partnership with a friend +in the City. He first made the acquaintance of the prisoner Taylor at the +Gaiety Theatre in 1892. He afterwards visited him at Little College +Street. Taylor was very civil and friendly and introduced him to different +people. The witness did not think at that time that Taylor had any +ulterior designs. One day, however, Taylor said to him, “I know a man, in +an influential position, who could be of great use to you, Mavor. He likes +young men when they’re modest and nice in manners and appearance. I’ll +introduce you.” It was arranged that they should dine at Kettner’s +Restaurant the next evening. He called for Taylor, who said, “I am glad +you’ve made yourself pretty. Mr. Wilde likes nice, clean boys.” That was +the first time Wilde’s name was mentioned. Arrived at the restaurant, they +were shown into a private room. A man named Schwabe and Wilde and another +gentleman came in later. He believed the other <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>gentleman to be Lord +Alfred Douglas. The conversation at dinner was, the witness thought, +peculiar, but he knew Wilde was a Bohemian and he did not think the talk +strange. He was placed next to Wilde, who used occasionally to pull his +ear or chuck him under the chin, but he did nothing that was actually +objectionable. He, Wilde, said to Taylor, “Our little lad has pleasing +manners; we must see more of him.” Wilde took his address and the witness +soon after received a silver cigarette-case inscribed “Sidney, from O. W. +October 1892.” “It was,” said the innocent-looking witness, “quite a +surprise to me!” In the same month he received a letter making an +appointment at the Albemarle Hotel and he went there and saw Wilde. The +witness explained that after he saw Mr. Russell, the solicitor, on March +30th, he did not visit Taylor, nor did he receive a letter from Taylor.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“With regard to a certain dinner at which you were +present. Was the gentleman who gave the dinner of some social position?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Taylor sent or gave you some cheques, I believe?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He did.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Were +they in payment of money you had advanced to him, merely?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">C. F. Gill</span>.—“The gentleman—‘of position’—who gave the dinner was +quite a young man, was he not?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Was Taylor, and Wilde also, present?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“In fact, it was their first meeting, was it not?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“So I understand.”</p> + +<p>Mavor being dismissed from the box, Edward Shelley was the next witness. +He gave his age as twenty-one and said that in 1891 he was employed by a +firm of publishers in Vigo Street. At that time Wilde’s books were being +published by that firm. Wilde was in the habit of coming to the firm’s +place of business and he seemed to take note of the witness and generally +stopped and spoke to him for a few moments. As Wilde was leaving Vigo +Street one day he invited him to dine with him at the Albemarle Hotel. The +witness kept the appointment—he was proud of the invitation—and they +dined together in a public room. Wilde was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>very kind and attentive, +pressed witness to drink, said he could get him on and finally invited him +to go with him to Brighton, Cromer, and Paris. The witness did not go. +Wilde made him a present of a set of his writings, including the notorious +and objectionable “Dorian Gray.” Wilde wrote something in the books. “To +one I like well,” or something to that effect, but the witness removed the +pages bearing the inscription. He only did that after the decision in the +Queenberry case. He was ashamed of the inscriptions and felt that they +were open to misconception. His father objected to his friendship with +Wilde. At first the witness thought that the latter was a kind of +philanthropist, fond of youth and eager to be of assistance to young men +of any promise. Certain speeches and actions on the part of Wilde caused +him to alter this opinion. Pressed as to the nature of the actions he +complained of, he said that Wilde once kissed him and put his arms round +him. The witness objected vigorously, according to his own statement, and +Wilde later said he was sorry and that he had drank too much wine. About +two years ago—in 1893—he wrote a certain letter to Wilde.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“On what subject?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It was to break off the acquaintance.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“How did the letter begin?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It began ‘Sir’.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Give me the gist of it.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I believe I said I have suffered more from my acquaintance with +you than you are ever likely to know of. I further said that he was an +immoral man, and that I would never, if I could help it, see him again.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did you ever see him again after that?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I did.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Why did you go and dine with Mr. Wilde a second time?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I suppose I was a young fool. I tried to think the best of +him.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You seem to have put the worst possible construction on his +liking for you. Did your friendly relations with Mr. Wilde remain unbroken +until the time you wrote that letter in March, 1893?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Have you seen Mr. Wilde since then?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“After that letter?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Where did you see him?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I went to see him in Tite Street.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span> then proceeded to question the witness with regard to +letters which he had written to Wilde both before and after the visits to +the Albemarle Hotel, and in the course of his replies the witness said +that he formed the opinion that “Wilde was really sorry for what he had +done.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“What do you mean by ‘what he had done’?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“His improper behaviour with young men.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Yet you say he never practised any actual improprieties upon +you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Because he saw that I would never allow anything of the kind. +He did not disguise from me what he wanted, or what his usual customs with +young men were.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Yet you wrote him grateful letters breathing apparent +friendship?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“For the reason I have given.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Well, we’ll leave that question. Now, tell me, why did you +leave the Vigo Street firm of publishers?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Because +it got to be known that I was friendly with Oscar Wilde.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did you leave the firm of your own accord?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Why?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“People employed there—my fellow-clerks—chaffed me about my +acquaintance with Wilde.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“In what way?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“They implied scandalous things. They called me ‘Mrs. Wilde’ and +‘Miss Oscar.’”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“So you left?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I resolved to put an end to an intolerable position.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You were in bad odour at home too, I think?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, a little.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“I put it to you that your father requested you to leave his +house?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes. He strongly objected to my friendship with Wilde.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You were uneasy in your mind as to Wilde’s object?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“That is so.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“When did +your mental balance, if I can put it so, recover itself?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“About October or November last.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“And have you remained well ever since?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think so.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Yet I find that in January of this year you were in serious +trouble?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“In what way?”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You were arrested for an assault upon your father?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, I was.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Where were you taken?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“To the Fulham Police Station.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You were offered bail?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did you send to Wilde and ask him to bail you out?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What happened?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“In an hour my father went to the station and I was liberated.”</p> + +<p>This witness now being released, the previous witness, Atkins, was +recalled and a very sensational incident arose. During the luncheon +interval, Mr. Robert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Humphreys, Wilde’s solicitor, had been busy. Not +satisfied with Atkins’s replies to the questions put to him in +cross-examination, he had searched the records at Scotland Yard and +Rochester Road and made some startling discoveries. A folded document was +handed up to the Judge. Mr. Justice Charles, who read it at once, assumed +a severe expression. The document was understood to be a copy of a record +from Rochester Road. Atkins, looking very sheepish and uncomfortable, +re-entered the witness-box and the Court prepared itself for some +startling disclosures.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke.</span>—“Now, I warn you to attend and to be very careful. I +am going to ask you a question; think before you reply.”</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Judge</span>.—“Just be careful now, Atkins.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“On June 10th, 1891, you were living at Tatchbrook Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“In Pimlico?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“James Burton was living there with you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He was.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Were you both taken by two constables, 396 A & 500 A—you +may have <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>forgotten the officer’s numbers—to Rochester Road Police +Station and charged with demanding money from a gentleman with menaces. +You had threatened to accuse him of a disgusting offence?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—(huskily)—“I was not charged with that.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Were you taken to the police station?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You, and Burton?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What were you charged with?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“With striking a gentleman.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“In what place was it alleged this happened?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“At the card-table.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“In your own room at Tatchbrook Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What was the name of the gentleman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“How long had you known him?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Only that night.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Where had you met him?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“At the Alhambra.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Had you seen him before that time?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not to speak to.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Meeting him at the Alhambra, did he accompany you to +Tatchbrook Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, to play cards.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Not to accuse him, when there, of attempting to indecently +handle you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Was Burton there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Anyone else?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I don’t think so.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Was the gentleman sober?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Oh, yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“What room did you go into?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“The sitting-room.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Who called the police?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“The landlady, perhaps?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I believe she did.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Did the landlady give you and Burton into custody?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No; nobody did.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Some person must have done. Who did?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“All I can say is, I did not hear anybody.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“At any rate you were taken to Rochester Road, and the +gentleman went with you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Police Constable 396 A was here called into court and took up a position +close to the witness-box. He gazed curiously at Atkins, who wriggled about +and eyed him uneasily.</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Now I ask you in the presence of this officer, was the +statement made at the police-station that you and the gentleman had been +in bed together?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I don’t think so.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Think before you speak; it will be better for you. Did not +the landlady actually come into the room and see you and the gentleman +naked on or in the bed together?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I don’t remember that she did.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You may as well tell me about it. You know. Was that +statement made?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Well, yes it was.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You had endeavoured to force money out of this gentleman?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I asked him for some money.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“At the police-station the gentleman refused to prosecute?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“So you and Burton were liberated?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“About two hours ago, Atkins, I asked you these very +questions and you swore upon your oath that you had not been in custody at +all, and had never been taken to Rochester Road Police Station. How came +you to tell me those lies?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I did not remember it.”</p> + +<p>Atkins looked somewhat crestfallen and abashed. Yet some of his former +brazen impudence still gleamed upon his now scarlet face. He heaved a deep +sigh of relief when told to leave the court by the judge, who pointed +sternly to the doorway.</p> + +<p>Of all the creatures associated with Wilde in these affairs, this Atkins +was the lowest and most contemptible. For some years he had been in the +habit of blackmailing men whom he knew to be inclined to perverted sexual +vices, and his was a well-known figure up West. He constantly frequented +the promenades of the music-halls. He “made up” his <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>eyes and lips, wore +corsets and affected an effeminate air. He was an infallible judge of the +class of man he wished to meet and rarely made a mistake. He would follow +a likely subject about, stumble against him as though by accident and make +an elaborate apology in mincing, female tones. Once in conversation with +his “mark,” he speedily contrived to make the latter aware that he did not +object to certain proposals. He invariably permitted the beastly act +before attempting blackmail, partly because it afforded him a stronger +hold over his “victim” and partly because he rejoiced in the disgusting +thing for its own sake. He was the butt of the ladies of the pavement +round Piccadilly Circus, who used to shout after him, enquire +sarcastically “if he had got off last night,” and if his “toff hadn’t +bilked him.” He would affect to laugh and pass the thing off with a joke; +but, to his intimates, he assumed a great loathing for women of this +class, whom he appeared to regard as dangerous obstacles to the exercise +of his own foul trade. On several occasions he was assaulted by these +women.</p> + +<p>To return to the Trial of Wilde and Taylor. As soon as the enquiry was +resumed, Mr. Charles Mathews went down into the cells and had an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +interview with the prisoner Wilde, and on his return entered into serious +consultation with his leader, Sir Edward Clarke. In the meanwhile, Taylor +conversed with his counsel, Mr. Grain, across the rail of the dock. It was +felt that an important announcement bearing on the conduct of the case was +likely to be made. It came from Mr. Gill, representing the prosecution.</p> + +<p>As soon as Mr. Justice Charles had taken his seat, the prosecuting counsel +rose and said that having considered the indictment, he had decided not to +ask for a verdict in the two counts charging the prisoners with +conspiracy. Subdued expressions of surprise were audible from the public +gallery when Mr. Gill delivered himself of this dramatic announcement, and +the sensation was strengthened a little later when Sir Edward Clarke +informed the jury that both the prisoners desired to give evidence and +would be called as witnesses. These matters having been determined upon, +Sir Edward Clarke rose and proceeded to make some severe criticisms upon +the conduct of the prosecution in what he referred to as the literary part +of the case. Hidden meanings, he said, had been most unjustly “read” into +the poetical and prose works of his client and it seemed that an +endeavour, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>though a futile one, was to be made to convict Mr. Wilde +because of a prurient construction which had been placed by his enemies +upon certain of his works. He alluded particularly to “Dorian Gray,” which +was an allegory, pure and simple. According to the rather musty and +far-fetched notions of the prosecution, it was an impure and simple +allegory, but Wilde could not fairly be judged, he said, by the standards +of other men, for he was a literary eccentric, though intellectually a +giant, and he did not profess to be guided by the same sentiments as +animated other and less highly-endowed men. He then called Mr. Wilde. The +prisoner rose with seeming alacrity from his place in the dock, walked +with a firm tread and dignified demeanour to the witness-box, and leaning +across the rail in the same easy and not ungraceful attitude that he +assumed when examined by Mr. Carson in the libel action, prepared to +answer the questions addressed to him by his counsel. Wilde was first +interrogated as to his previous career. In the year 1884, he had married a +Miss Lloyd, and from that time to the present he had continued to live +with his wife at 16, Tite Street, Chelsea. He also occupied rooms in St. +James’s Place, which were rented for the purposes of his literary labours, +as it was quite <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>impossible to secure quiet and mental repose at his own +house, when his two young sons were at home. He had heard the evidence in +this case against himself, and asserted that there was no shadow of a +foundation for the charges of indecent behaviour alleged against himself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gill then rose to cross-examine and the Court at once became on the +<i>qui vive</i>. Wilde seemed perfectly calm and did not change his attitude, +or tone of polite deprecation.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You are acquainted with a publication entitled ‘The +Chameleon’?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Very well indeed.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Contributors to that journal are friends of yours?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“That is so.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I believe that Lord Alfred Douglas was a frequent +contributor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Hardly that, I think. He wrote some verses occasionally for the +‘Chameleon,’ and, indeed, for other papers.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“The poems in question were somewhat peculiar?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“They certainly were not mere commonplaces like so much that is +labelled poetry.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“The +tone of them met with your critical approval?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It was not for me to approve or disapprove. I leave that to the +Reviews.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“At the trial Queensberry and Wilde you described them as +‘beautiful poems’?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I said something tantamount to that. The verses were original +in theme and construction, and I admired them.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“In one of the sonnets by Lord A. Douglas a peculiar use is +made of the word ‘shame’?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have noticed the line you refer to.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“What significance would you attach to the use of that word in +connection with the idea of the poem?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I can hardly take it upon myself to explain the thoughts of +another man.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You were remarkably friendly with the author? Perhaps he +vouchsafed you an explanation?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“On one occasion he did.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I should like to hear it.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Lord Alfred explained that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +word ‘shame’ was used in the sense of modesty, <i>i. e.</i> to feel shame or not to feel shame.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You can, perhaps, understand that such verses as these would +not be acceptable to the reader with an ordinarily balanced mind?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am not prepared to say. It appears to me to be a question of +taste, temperament and individuality. I should say that one man’s poetry +is another man’s poison!” (Loud laughter.)</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I daresay! There is another sonnet. What construction can be +put on the line, ‘I am the love that dare not speak its name’?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think the writer’s meaning is quite unambiguous. The love he +alluded to was that between an elder and younger man, as between David and +Jonathan; such love as Plato made the basis of his philosophy; such as was +sung in the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michael Angelo; that deep spiritual +affection that was as pure as it was perfect. It pervaded great works of +art like those of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. Such as ‘passeth the +love of woman.’ It was beautiful, it was pure, it was noble, it was +intellectual—this love of an elder man with his experience of life, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>the younger with all the joy and hope of life before him.”</p> + +<p>The witness made this speech with great emphasis and some signs of +emotion, and there came from the gallery, at its conclusion, a medley of +applause and hisses which his lordship at once ordered to be suppressed.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I wish to call your attention to the style of your +correspondence with Lord A. Douglas.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am ready. I am never ashamed of the style of any of my +writings.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You are fortunate—or shall I say shameless? I refer to +passages in two letters in particular.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Kindly quote them.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“In letter number one. You use this expression: ‘Your slim gilt +soul,’ and you refer to Lord Alfred’s “rose-leaf lips.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“The letter is really a sort of prose sonnet in answer to an +acknowledgement of one I had received from Lord Alfred.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Do you think that an ordinarily-constituted being would +address such expressions to a younger man?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am +not, happily, I think, an ordinarily constituted being.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“It is agreeable to be able to agree with you, Mr. Wilde.” +(Laughter).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“There is, I assure you, nothing in either letter of which I +need be ashamed.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You have heard the evidence of the lad Charles Parker?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Of Atkins?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Of Shelley?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“And these witnesses have, you say, lied throughout?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Their evidence as to my association with them, as to the +dinners taking place and the small presents I gave them, is mostly true. +But there is not a particle of truth in that part of the evidence which +alleged improper behaviour.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Why did you take up with these youths?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am a lover of youth.” (Laughter).</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You exalt youth as a sort of God?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I like to study the young in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +everything. There is something fascinating in youthfulness.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“So you would prefer puppies to dogs, and kittens to cats?” +(Laughter).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think so. I should enjoy, for instance, the society of a +beardless, briefless, barrister quite as much as that of the most +accomplished Q. C.” (Loud laughter).</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I hope the former, whom I represent in large numbers, will +appreciate the compliment.” (More laughter). “These youths were much +inferior to you in station?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I never enquired, nor did I care, what station they occupied. I +found them, for the most part, bright and entertaining. I found their +conversation a change. It acted as a kind of mental tonic.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You saw nothing peculiar or suggestive in the arrangement of +Taylor’s rooms?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I cannot say that I did. They were Bohemian. That is all. I +have seen stranger rooms.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You never suspected the relations that might exist between +Taylor and his young friends?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I had no need to suspect anything.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +Taylor’s relations with his friends appeared to me to be quite normal.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You have attended to the evidence of the witness Mavor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Is it true or false?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It is mainly true, but false inferences have been drawn from it +as from most of the evidence. Truth may be found, I believe, at the bottom +of a well. It is, apparently difficult to find it in a court of law.” +(Laughter.)</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Nevertheless we endeavour to extract it. Did the witness Mavor +write you expressing a wish to break off the acquaintance?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I received a rather unaccountable and impertinent letter from +him for which he afterwards expressed great regret.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Why should he have written it if your conduct had altogether +been blameless?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I do not profess to be able to explain the motives of most of +the witnesses. Mavor may have been told some falsehood about me. His +father was greatly incensed at his conduct at this time, and, I believe, +attributed his son’s erratic courses to his friendship with me. I do not +think Mavor altogether to blame. Pressure was brought to bear upon <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>him +and he was not then quite right in his mind.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“You made handsome presents to these young fellows?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Pardon me, I differ. I gave two or three of them a +cigarette-case. Boys of that class smoke a good deal of cigarettes. I have +a weakness for presenting my acquitances with cigarette-cases.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“Rather an expensive habit if indulged in indiscriminately.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Less extravagant than giving jewelled-garters to ladies.” +(Laughter).</p> + +<p>When a few more unimportant questions had been asked, Wilde left the +witness-box, returning to the dock with the same air of what may be +described as serious easiness. The impression created by his replies was +not, upon the whole, favorable to his cause.</p> + +<p>His place was taken by the prisoner Taylor. He said that he was +thirty-three years of age and was educated at Marlborough. When he was +twenty-one he came into £45,000. In a few years he ran through this +fortune, and at about the time he went to Chapel Street, he was made a +bankrupt. The charges made against him of misconduct were entirely +unfounded. He was asked point-blank if he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> not been given to sodomy +from his early youth, and if he had not been expelled from a public-school +for being caught in a compromising situation with a small boy in the +lavatory. Taylor was also asked if he had not actually obtained a living +since his bankruptcy by procuring lads and young men for rich gentlemen +whom he knew to be given to this vice. He was also asked if he had not +extracted large sums of money from wealthy men by threatening to accuse +them of immoralities. To all these plain questions he returned in direct +answer, “No.”</p> + +<p>After the luncheon interval, Sir Edward Clark rose to address the jury in +defence of Oscar Wilde. He began by carefully analysing the evidence. He +declared that the wretches who had come forward to admit their own +disgrace were shameless creatures incapable of one manly thought or one +manly action. They were, without exception, blackmailers. They lived by +luring men to their rooms, generally, on the pretence that a beautiful +girl would be provided for them on their arrival. Once in their clutches, +these victims could only get away by paying a large sum of money unless +they were prepared to face and deny the most disgraceful charges. Innocent +men constantly paid rather than face the odium attached to the breath even +of such scandals. They had, moreover, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>wives and children, daughters, +maybe or a sister whose honour or name they were obliged to consider. +Therefore they usually submitted to be fleeced and in this way, this +wretched Wood and the abject Atkins had been able to go about the West-end +well-fed and well-dressed. These youths had been introduced to Wilde. They +were pleasant-spoken enough and outwardly decent in their language and +conduct. Wilde was taken in by them and permitted himself to enjoy their +society. He did not defend Wilde for this; he had unquestionably shown +imprudence, but a man of his temperament could not be judged by the +standards of the average individual. These youths had come forward to make +these charges in a conspiracy to ruin his client.</p> + +<p>Was it likely, he asked, that a man of Wilde’s cleverness would put +himself so completely in the power of these harpies as he would be if +guilty of only a tenth of the enormities they alleged against him? If +Wilde practised these acts so openly and so flagrantly—if he allowed the +facts to come to the knowledge of so many—then he was a fool who was not +fit to be at large. If the evidence was to be credited, these acts of +gross indecency which culminated in actual crime were done in so open a +manner as to compel the attention of landladies and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>housemaids. He was +not himself—and he thanked Heaven for it—versed in the acts of those who +committed these crimes against nature. He did not know under what +circumstances they could be practised. But he believed that this was a +vice which, because of the horror and repulsion it excited, because of the +fury it provoked against those guilty of it, was conducted with the utmost +possible secrecy. He respectfully submitted that no jury could find a man +guilty on the evidence of these tainted witnesses.</p> + +<p>Take the testimony, he said, of Atkins. This young man had denied that he +had ever been charged at a police station with alleging blackmail. Yet he +was able to prove that he had grossly perjured himself in this and other +directions. That was a sample of the evidence and Atkins was a type of the +witnesses.</p> + +<p>The only one of these youths who had ever attempted to get a decent living +or who was not an experienced blackmailer was Mavor, and he had denied +that Wilde had ever been guilty of any impropriety with him.</p> + +<p>The prosecution had sought to make capital out of two letters written by +Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas. He pointed out a fact which was of +considerable importance, namely, that Wilde had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>produced one of these +letters himself. Was that the act of a man who had reason to fear the +contents of a letter being known? Wilde never made any secret of visiting +Taylor’s rooms. He found there society which afforded him variety and +change. Wilde made no secret of giving dinners to some of the witnesses. +He thought that they were poorly off and that a good dinner at a +restaurant did not often come their way. On only one occasion did he hire +a private room. The dinners were perfectly open and above-board. Wilde was +an extraordinary man and he had written letters which might seem +high-flown, extravagant, exaggerated, absurd if they liked; but he was not +afraid or ashamed to produce these letters. The witnesses Charles Parker, +Alfred Wood and Atkins had been proved to have previously been guilty of +blackmailing of this kind and upon their uncorroborated evidence surely +the jury would not convict the prisoner on such terrible charges.</p> + +<p>“Fix your minds,” concluded Sir Edward earnestly, “firmly on the tests +that ought to be applied to the evidence as a whole before you can condemn +a fellow-man to a charge like this. Remember all that this charge implied, +of implacable ruin and inevitable disgrace. Then I trust that the result +of your deliberations will be to gratify those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> thousand hopes that are +waiting upon your verdict. I trust that verdict will clear from this +fearful imputation one of the most accomplished and renowned +men-of-letters of to-day.”</p> + +<p>At the end of this peroration, there was some slight applause at the back +of the court, but it was hushed almost at once. Wilde had paid great +attention to the speech on his behalf and on one or two occasions had +pressed his hands to his eyes as if expressing some not unnatural emotion. +The speech concluded, however, he resumed his customary attitude and +awaited with apparent firmness all that might befall.</p> + +<p>Mr. Grain then rose to address the jury on behalf of Taylor. He submitted +that there was really no case against his client. An endeavour had been +made to prove that Taylor was in the habit of introducing to Wilde youths +whom he knew to be amenable to the practices of the latter and that he got +paid for this degrading work. The attempt to establish this disgusting +association between Taylor and Wilde had completely broken down. He was, +it is true, acquainted with Parker, Wood and Atkins. He had seen them +constantly in restaurants and music-halls, and they had at first forced +themselves upon his notice and thus got acquainted with a man <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>whom they +designed for blackmail. All the resources of the Crown had been unable to +produce any corroboration of the charges made by these witnesses. How had +Taylor got his livelihood, it might be asked? He was perfectly prepared to +answer the question. He had been living on an allowance made him by +members of his late father’s firm, a firm with which all there present +were familiar. Was it in the least degree likely that such scenes as the +witnesses described, with such apparent candour and such wealth of filthy +detail, could have taken place in Taylor’s own apartments? It was +incredible that a man could thus risk almost certain discovery. In +conclusion, he confidently looked for the acquittal of his client, who was +guilty of nothing more than having made imprudent acquaintances and having +trusted too much to the descriptions of themselves given by others.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gill then replied for the prosecution in a closely-reasoned and most +able speech, which occupied two hours in delivery and which created an +enormous impression in the crowded court. He commented at great length +upon the evidence. He contended that in a case of this description +corroboration was of comparatively minor importance, for it was not in the +least likely that acts of the kind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> alleged would be practised before a +third party who might afterwards swear to the fact. Therefore, when the +witnesses described what had transpired when they and the prisoners were +alone, he did not think that corroboration could possibly be given. There +was not likely to be an eye-witness of the facts. But in respect to many +things he declared the evidence was corroborated. Whatever the character +of these youths might be, they had given evidence as to certain facts and +no cross-examination, however adroit, however vigorous, had shaken their +testimony, or caused them to waver about that which was evidently firmly +implanted in their memories. A man might conceivably come forward and +commit perjury. But these youths were accusing themselves, in accusing +another, of shameful and infamous acts, and this they would hardly do if +it were not the truth. Wilde had made presents to these youths and it was +noticeable that the gifts were invariably made after he had been alone, at +some rooms or other, with one or another of the lads. In the +circumstances, even a silver cigarette-case was corroboration. His learned +friend had protested against any evil construction being placed upon these +gifts and these dinners; but, in the name of common-sense, what other +construction was possible? When <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>they heard of a man like Wilde, +presumably of refined and cultured tastes, who might if he wished, enjoy +the society of the best and most cultivated men and women in London, +accompanying to Nice and other places on the Continent, uninformed, +unintellectual and vulgar, ill-bred youths of the type of Charles Parker, +then, in Heaven’s name what were they to think? All those visits, all +those dinners, all those gifts, were corroboration. They served to confirm +the truth of the statements made by the youths who confessed to the +commission of acts for which the things he had quoted were positive and +actual payment.</p> + +<p>In the case of the witness Sidney Mavor, it was clear that Wilde had, in +some way, continued to disgust this youth. Some acts of Wilde, either +towards himself, or towards others, had offended him. Was not the letter +which Mavor had addressed to the prisoner, desiring the cessation of their +friendship, corrobation?</p> + +<p>(At this moment his Lordship interposed, and said that although the +evidence of this witness was clearly of importance, he had denied that he +had been guilty of impropriety, and he did not think the count in +reference to Mavor could stand. After<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> some discussion this count was +struck out of the indictment).</p> + +<p>Before concluding Mr. Gill stated that he had withdrawn the conspiracy +count to prevent any embarrassment to Sir Edward Clarke, who had +complained that he was affected in his defence by the counts being joined. +Mr. Gill said, in conclusion, that it was the duty of the jury to express +their verdict without fear or favour. They owed a duty to Society, however +sorry they might feel themselves at the moral downfall of an eminent man, +to protect Society from such scandals by removing from its heart a sore +which could not fail in time to corrupt and taint it all.</p> + +<p>Mr. Justice Charles then commenced his summing-up. His lordship at the +outset said he thought Mr. Gill had taken a wise course in withdrawing the +conspiracy counts and thus relieving them all of an embarrassing position. +He did not see why the conspiracy counts need have been inserted at all, +and he should direct the jury to return a verdict of acquittal on those +charges as well as upon one other count against Taylor, to which he would +further allude, and upon which no sufficient evidence had been given.</p> + +<p>He, the learned judge, asked the jury to apply <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>their minds solely to the +evidence which had been given. Any pre-conceived notion which they might +have formed from reading about the case he urged them to dismiss from +their minds, and to deal with the case as it had been presented to them by +the witnesses.</p> + +<p>His Lordship went on to ask the jury not to attach too much importance to +the uncorroborated evidence of accomplices in such cases as these. Had +there been no corroboration in this case it would have been his duty to +instruct the jury accordingly; but he was clearly of opinion that there +was corroboration to all the witnesses; not, it is true, the conspiracy +testimony of eye-witnesses, but corroboration of the narrative generally.</p> + +<p>Three of the witnesses, Chas. Parker, Wood and Atkins, were not only +accomplices, but they had been properly described by Sir Edward Clarke as +persons of bad character. Atkins, out of his own mouth, was convicted of +having told the most gross and deliberate falsehoods. The jury knew how +this matter came before them as the outcome of the trial of Lord +Queensberry for alleged libel.</p> + +<p>The learned judge proceeded to outline the features of the Queensberry +trial, commenting most upon what was called the literary part of Wilde’s +examination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> in that case. The judge said that he had not read “Dorian +Gray”, but extracts were read at the former trial and the present jury had +a general idea of the story. He did not think they ought to base any +unfavourable inference upon the fact that Wilde was the author of that +work. It would not be fair to do so, for while it was true that there were +many great writers, such for instance as Sir Walter Scott and Charles +Dickens, who never penned an offensive line, there were other great +authors whose pens dealt with subjects not so innocent.</p> + +<p>As for Wilde’s aphorisms in the “Chameleon”, some were amusing, some were +cynical, and some were, if he might be allowed to say so, simple, but +there was nothing <i>in per se</i>, to convict Wilde of indecent practices. +However, the same paper contained a very indecent contribution; “The +Priest and the Acolyte.” Mr. Wilde had nothing to do with that. In the +“Chameleon” also appeared two poems by Lord Alfred Douglas, one called “In +Praise of Shame”, and the other called “Two Loves.” It was said that these +sonnets had an immoral tendency and that Wilde approved them. He was +examined at great length about these sonnets, and was also asked about the +two letters written by him to Lord <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Alfred Douglas—letters that had been +written before the publication of the above mentioned poems.</p> + +<p>In the previous case Mr. Carson had insisted that these letters were +indecent. On the other hand, Wilde had told them that he was not ashamed +of them, as they were intended in the nature of prose poems and breathed +the pure love of one man for another, such a love as David had for +Jonathan, and such as Plato described as the beginning of wisdom.</p> + +<p>He would next deal with the actual charges, and would first call their +attention to the offence alleged to have been committed with Edward +Shelley at the beginning of 1892. Shelley was undoubtedly in the position +of an accomplice, but his evidence was corroborated. He was not, however, +tainted with the offences with which Parker, Wood and Atkins were +connected. He seemed to be a person of some education and a fondness for +Literature. As to Shelley’s visit to the Albemarle Hotel, the jury were +the best judges of the demeanour of the witness. Wilde denied all the +allegations of indecency though he admitted the other parts of the young +man’s story. His Lordship called attention to the letters written by +Shelley to Wilde in 1892, 1893 and 1894. It was, he said, a very anxious +part of the jury’s task to account for the tone of these letters, and for +Shelley’s conduct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> generally. It became a question as to whether or no his +mind was disordered. He felt bound to say that though there was evidence +of great excitability, to talk of either Shelley or Mavor as an insane +youth was an exaggeration, but it would be for the jury to draw their own +conclusions.</p> + +<p>Passing to the case of Atkins, the judge drew attention to his meeting +with Taylor in November 1892, to the dinner at the Café Florence, at which +Wilde, Taylor, Atkins and Lord A. Douglas were present, and to the visit +of Atkins to Paris in company with Wilde.</p> + +<p>After dwelling on the circumstances of that visit, his lordship referred +to Wilde’s two visits to Atkins in Osnaburgh Street in December 1893. +Wilde explained the Paris visit by saying that Schwabe had arranged to +take Atkins to Paris, but being unable to leave at the time appointed he +asked Wilde to take charge of the youth, and he did so out of friendship +for Schwabe. Wilde further denied that he was much in Atkins’ company when +in Paris. Atkins certainly was an unreliable witness and had obviously +given an incorrect version of his relations with Burton. He told the +grossest falsehoods with regard to their arrest, and was convicted out of +his own mouth when recalled by Sir E. Clarke. It was for <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>the jury to +decide how much of Atkins’s evidence they might safely believe.</p> + +<p>Then there were the events described as having occured at the Savoy Hotel +in March 1892. He would ask the jury to be careful in the evidence of the +chamber-maid, Jane Cotter, and the interpretation they put upon it. If her +evidence and that of the Masseur Mijji, were true, then Wilde’s evidence +on that part of the case was untrue, and the jury must use their own +discretion. He did not wish to enlarge upon this most unpleasant part of +the whole unpleasant case, but it was necessary to remind the jury as +discreetly as he could that the chamber-maid had objected to making the +bed on several occasions after Wilde and Atkins had been in the bed-room +alone together. There were, she had affirmed, indications on the sheets +that conduct of the grossest kind had been indulged in. He thought it his +duty to remind the jury that there might be an innocent explanation of +these stains, though the evidence of Jane Cotter certainly afforded a kind +of corroboration of these charges and of Atkins’s own story. In reference +to the case of Wood, he contrasted Wood’s account with that of Wilde.</p> + +<p>It seemed that Lord Alfred Douglas had met Wood at Taylor’s rooms. In +response to a telegram from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the former, Wood went to the Café Royal and +there met Wilde for the first time, Wilde speaking first. On the other +hand, Wilde represented that Wood spoke first. The jury might think that, +in any case, the circumstances of that meeting were remarkable, especially +when taken in conjunction with what followed. There was no doubt that Wood +had fallen into evil courses and he and Allen had extracted the sum of +£300 in blackmail. The interview between Wilde and Wood prior to the +latter’s departure for America was remarkable. A sum of money, said to be +£30, was given by Wilde to Wood, and Wood returned some of Wilde’s letters +that had somehow come into his possession. Wood, however, kept back one +letter which got into Allen’s possession. Wood got £5 more on the +following day, went to America, and while there wrote to Taylor a letter +in which occured the passage. “Tell Oscar if he likes he can send me a +draft for an Easter Egg.” It would be for the jury to consider what would +have been the inner meaning of these and other transactions.</p> + +<p>As to the prisoner Taylor, he had, on his own admission, led a life of +idleness, and got through a fortune of £45,000. It was alleged that the +prisoner had virtually turned his apartments into a bagnio or <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>brothel, in +which young men took the place of prostitutes, and that his character in +this regard was well known to those who were secretly given to this +particular vice. One of the offences imputed to Taylor had reference to +Charles Parker, who had spoken of the peculiar arrangement of the rooms. +There were two bedrooms in the inner room with folding doors between and +the windows were heavily draped, so that no one from the opposite houses +could possibly see what was going on inside. Heavy curtains, it was said, +hung before all the doors, so that it could not be possible for an +eave’s-dropper to hear what was proceeding inside. There was a curiously +shaped sofa in the sitting-room and the whole aspect of the room +resembled, it was asserted, a fashionable resort for vice.</p> + +<p>Wilde was undoubtedly present at some of the tea parties given there, and +did not profess to be surprised at what he saw there. It had been shown +that both the Parkers went to these rooms, and further, that Charles +Parker had received £30 of the blackmail extorted by Wood and Allen.</p> + +<p>Charles Parker’s evidence was therefore doubly-tainted like that of Wood +and Atkins, but his evidence was to some extent confirmed by that of his +brother William. Some parts of Charles Parker’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> evidence were also +corroborated by other witnesses, as for instance, by Marjorie Bancroft, +who swore that she saw Wilde visit Charles Parker’s rooms in Park Walk.</p> + +<p>It was admitted that this Parker visited Wilde at St. James’ Place. +Charles Parker had been arrested with Taylor in the Fitzroy Square raid +and this went to show that they were in the habit of associating with +those suspected of offences of the kind alleged. Both, however, were on +that occasion discharged and Parker enlisted in the army. It was quite +manifest that Charles Parker was of a low class of morality.</p> + +<p>That concluded the various charges made in this case and he had very +little to add. Mavor’s evidence had little or no value with reference to +the issues now before the jury, except as showing how he became acquainted +with Wilde and Taylor. So far as it went, Mavor’s evidence was rather in +favour of Wilde than otherwise and nothing indecent had been proved +against that witness.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, his lordship submitted the case to the jury in the +confident hope that they would do justice to themselves on the one hand, +and to the two defendants on the other. The learned judge concluded by +further directing the jury as to the issues, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>and asked them to form their +opinions on the evidence, and to give the case their careful +consideration.</p> + +<p>The judge left the following questions to the jury:—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">First</span>, whether Wilde committed certain offences with Shelley, Wood, with a +person or persons unknown at the Savoy Hotel, or with Charles Parker?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Secondly</span>, whether Taylor procured the commission of those acts or any of +them?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Thirdly</span>, did Wilde or Taylor, or either of them attempt to get Atkins to +commit certain offences with Wilde, and <span class="smcap">Fourthly</span>, did Taylor commit +certain acts with either Charles Parker or Wood?</p> + +<p>The Jury retired at 1.35, the summing-up of the judge having taken exactly +three hours.</p> + +<p>At three o’clock a communication was brought from the jury, and conveyed +by the Clerk of arraigns to the Judge, and shortly afterwards the jury had +luncheon taken in to them.</p> + +<p>At 4.15 the judge sent for the Clerk of arraigns, Mr. Avory, who proceeded +to his lordship’s private room.</p> + +<p>Subsequently, Mr. Avory went to the jury, apparently with a communication +from the judge and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> returned in a few minutes to the judge’s private room.</p> + +<p>Shortly before five o’clock the usher brought a telegram from one of the +jurors, and after it had been shown to the clerk of arraigns it was +allowed to be despatched.</p> + +<p>Eventually the jury returned into court at a quarter past five o’clock.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><strong>THE VERDICT</strong></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“I have received a communication from you to the effect that +you are unable to arrive at an agreement. Now, is there anything you +desire to ask me in reference to the case?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Foreman.</span>—“I have put that question to my fellow-jurymen, my lord, and +I do not think there is any doubt that we cannot agree upon three of the +questions.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“I find from the entry which you have written against the +various subdivisions of No. 1 that you cannot agree as to any of those +subdivisions?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Foreman.</span>—“That is so, my lord.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“Is there no prospect of an agreement if you retire to your +room?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span><span class="smcap">The Foreman.</span>—“I fear not.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“You have not been inconvenienced; I ordered what you +required, and there is no prospect that, with a little more deliberation, +you may come to an agreement as to some of them?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Foreman.</span>—“My fellow-jurymen say there is no possibility.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“I am very unwilling to prejudice your deliberations, and I +have no doubt that you have done your best to arrive at an agreement. On +the other hand I would point out to you that the inconveniences of a new +trial are very great. If you thought that by deliberating a reasonable +time you could arrive at a conclusion upon any of the questions I have +asked you, I would ask you to do so.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Foreman.</span>—“We considered the matter before coming into court and I do +not think there is any chance of agreement. We have considered it again +and again.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“If you tell me that, I do not think I am justified in +detaining you any longer.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“I wish to ask, my lord, that a verdict may be given +in the conspiracy counts.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“I wish to oppose that.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“I directed the acquittal of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +prisoners on the conspiracy counts this morning. I thought that was the right course to adopt, and the +same remark might be made with regard to the two counts in which Taylor +was charged with improper conduct towards Wood and Parker. It was +unfortunate that the real and material questions which had occupied the +jury’s attention for such a length of time were matters upon which the +jury were unable to agree. Upon these matters and upon the counts which +were concerned with them, I must discharge the jury.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke.</span>—“I wish to apply for bail, then for M. Wilde.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Hall</span>.—“And I make the same application on behalf of Taylor.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“I don’t feel able to accede to the applications.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward.</span>—“I shall probably renew the application, my lord.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“That would be to a judge in chambers.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Gill</span>.—“The case will assuredly be tried again and probably it will go +to the next Sessions.”</p> + +<p>The two prisoners, who had listened to all this very attentively, were +then conducted from the dock. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>Wilde had listened to the foreman of the +jury’s statement without any show of feeling.</p> + +<p>It was stated that the failure of the jury to agree upon a verdict was +owing to three out of the twelve being unable upon the evidence placed +before them to arrive at any other conclusion than that of “Not Guilty.”</p> + +<p>The following day Mr. Baron Pollock decided that Oscar Wilde should be +allowed out on bail in his own recognisances of £2,500 and two sureties of +£1,250 each. Wilde was brought up at Bow Street next day and the sureties +attended. After a further application, bail in his case was granted and he +went out of prison, for the present a free man, but with <span class="smcap">Nemesis</span>, in the +shape of the second trial, awaiting him!</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>The second trial of Oscar Wilde, with its dramatic finale, for no one +thought much of its consequences to Alfred Taylor, came on in the third +week of May at the Old Bailey.</p> + +<p>It was agreed to take the cases of the prisoners separately, Taylor’s +first. Sir Edward Clarke, who still represented Wilde, stated that he +should make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> an application at the end of Taylor’s trial that Wilde’s case +should stand over till the next sessions. His lordship said that +application had better be postponed till the end of the first trial, +significantly adding, “If there should be an acquittal, so much the better +for the other prisoner.” Meanwhile Wilde was to be released on bail.</p> + +<p>Sir Francis Lockwood, who now represented the prosecution, then went over +all the details of the intimacy of the Parkers and Wood with Taylor and +Wilde and called Charles Parker, who repeated his former evidence, +including a very serious allegation against the prisoner. He stated in so +many words that Taylor had kept him at his rooms for a whole week during +which time they rarely went out, and had repeatedly committed sodomy with +him. The witness unblushingly asserted that they slept together and that +Taylor called him “Darling” and referred to him as “my little Wife.” When +he left Taylor’s rooms the latter paid him some money, said he should +never want for cash and that he would introduce him to men “prepared to +pay for that kind of thing.” Cross-examined; Charles Parker admitted that +he had previously been guilty of this offence, but had determined never to +submit to such treatment again. Taylor over-persuaded him. He was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>nearly +drunk and incapable, the first time, of making a moral resistance.</p> + +<p>Alfred Wood also described his acquaintance with Taylor and his visits to +what he termed the “snuggery” at Little College Street, but which quite as +appropriately could have been designed by a name which would have the +additional merit of strictly describing it and of rhyming with it at the +same time! It was not at all clear, however, that Taylor was responsible, +at least directly, for the introduction of Alfred Wood to Wilde as the +indictment suggested. This was effected by a third person, whose name had +not as yet been introduced into the case.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grant, the landlady at 13 Little College Street, described Taylor’s +rooms. She was not aware, she said, that they were put to an improper use, +but she had remarked to her husband the care taken that whatever went on +there should be hidden from the eyes and ears of others. Young men used to +come there and remain some time with Taylor, and Wilde was a frequent +visitor. Taylor provided much of his own bed-linen and she noticed that +the pillows had lace and were generally elaborate and costly.</p> + +<p>The prosecution next called a new witness, Emily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> Becca, chambermaid at +the Savoy Hotel, who stated that she had complained to the management of +the state in which she found the bed-linen and the utensils of the room. +When pressed for particulars the witness hesitated, and after stating that +she refused to make the bed or empty the “chamber,” she said she handed in +her notice but was prevailed upon to withdraw it. Then by a series of +adroit questions Counsel obtained the particulars. The bed-linen was +stained. The colour was brown. The towels were similarly discoloured. One +of the pillows was marked with face-powder. There was excrement in one of +the utensils in the bedroom. Wilde had handed her half a sovereign but +when she saw the state of the room after he had gone she gave the coin to +the management.</p> + +<p>Evidence with regard to Wilde’s rooms at St. James’ Place was given by +Thomas Price, who was able to identify Taylor as one of the callers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gray—no relation, haply, to the notorious “Dorian”—of 3 Chapel +Street, Chelsea, deposed that Taylor stayed at her house from August 1893 +to the end of that year. Formal and minor items of evidence concluded the +case for the prosecution of Taylor, and Mr. Grain proceeded to open his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>defence by calling the prisoner into the witness-box. Mr. Grain examined +him.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“What is your age?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am thirty-three.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“You are the son of the late Henry Taylor, who was a +manufacturer of an article of food in large demand?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I am.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“You were at Marlborough School?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Till I was seventeen.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“You inherited £45,000 I believe?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“And spent it?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It went.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Since then you have had no occupation?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I have lived upon an allowance made me.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“Is there any truth in the evidence of Charles Parker that you +misconducted yourself with him.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Not the slightest.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“What rooms had you at Little College Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“One +bedroom, but it was sub-divided and I believe there was generally a bed in each division.”</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grain</span>.—“You had a good many visitors?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Oh, yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank Lockwood</span>.—“Did Charles Mavor stay with you then?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, about a week.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“When?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“When I first went there, in 1892.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“What is his age?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He is now 26 or 27.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Do you remember going through a form of marriage with Mavor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No, never.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Did you tell Parker you did?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Nothing of the kind.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Did you not place a wedding-ring on his finger and go to bed +with him that night as though he were your lawful wife?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It is all false. I deny it all.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Did you ever sleep with Mavor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think I did the first night—after, he had a separate bed.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Did you induce Mavor to attire himself as a woman?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Certainly I did not.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“But there were articles of women’s dress at your rooms?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No. There was a fancy dress for a female, a theatrical +costume.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Was it made for a woman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I think so.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Perhaps you wore it?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I put it on once by way of a lark.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“On no other occasion?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I wore it once, too, at a fancy dress ball.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“I suggest that you often dressed as a woman?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“You wore, and caused Mavor afterwards, to wear lace +drawers—a woman’s garment—with the dress?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I wore knicker-bockers and stockings when I wore it at the +fancy dress ball.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“And a woman’s wig, which afterwards did for Mavor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No, the wig was made for me. I was going to a fancy-ball as +‘Dick Whittington’.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Who introduced you to the Parkers?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“A +friend named Harrington at the St. James’s Restaurant.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“You invited them to your rooms?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I did.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Why?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I found them very nice.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“You were acquainted with a young fellow named Mason?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“He visited you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Two or three times only, I think.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Did you induce him to commit a filthy act with you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Never.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“He has written you letters?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“That’s very likely.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“The Solicitor General proposes to read one.”</p> + +<p>The letter was as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Dear Alf,</p> + +<p>Let me have some money as soon as you can. I would not ask you for it +if I could get any myself. You know the business is not so easy. There +is a lot of trouble attached to it.</p> + +<p>Come home soon, dear, and let us go out toge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>ther sometimes. Have very +little news. Going to a dinner on Monday and a theatre to-night.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">With much love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Yours always,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><span class="smcap">Charles</span>.”</span></p></div> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Solicitor General</span>.—(Severely) “I ask you, Taylor, for an explanation, +for it requires one, of the use of the words “come home soon, dear”, as +between two men.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Taylor.</span>—(Laughing nervously) “I do not see anything in it.”</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Solicitor General</span>.—“Nothing in it?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Well, I am not responsible for the expressions of another.”</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Solicitor General</span>.—“You allowed yourself to be addressed in this +strain?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It’s the way you read it.”</p> + +<p>The summing-up followed and after a consultation of three-quarters of an +hour, the jury returned a verdict against Taylor on the indecency counts, +not agreeing, however, as to the charges of procuration. Sentence was +postponed, pending the result of the trial of Oscar Wilde, which began +next day.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>Wilde had meanwhile been at large on bail. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> one charge of “conspiring +with Alfred Taylor to procure” had been dropped, and the indictment of +misdemeanour alleged that the prisoner unlawfully committed various acts +with Charles Parker, Alfred Wood, Edward Shelley, and certain persons +unknown.</p> + +<p>The plea of “Not Guilty” was recorded.</p> + +<p>The case for the prosecution was opened by calling Edward Shelley, the +young man who had been employed by the Vigo Street publishers. Shelley +repeated the story of the beginning and the progress of his intimacy with +Wilde. It began, he said, in 1891; in March 1893, they quarrelled. The +witness had been subjected by the prisoner to attempts at improper +conduct. Oscar had, to be plain, on several occasions, placed his hand on +the private parts of the witness and sought to put his, witness’s, hand in +the same indelicate position as regards Wilde’s own person. Witness +resented these acts at the time; had told Wilde not to be ‘a beast’, and +the latter expressed his sorrow. “But I am so fond of you, Edward,” he had +said.</p> + +<p>The Witness wrote Wilde that he would not see him again. He spoke in the +letter of these and other acts of impropriety and made use of the +expression, “I was entrapped.” Witness explained <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>to the court, “He knew I +admired him very much and he took advantage of me—of my admiration +and—well, I won’t say innocence. I don’t know what to call it.”</p> + +<p>These are some of the letters which Shelley wrote to Wilde:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">October 27, 1892.</p> + +<p>Oscar: Will you be at home on Sunday evening next? I am most anxious +to see you. I would have called this evening, but I am suffering from +nervousness, the result of insomnia and am obliged to remain at home.</p> + +<p>I have longed to see you all through the week. I have much to tell +you. Do not think me forgetful in not coming before, because I shall +never forget your kindness, and am conscious that I can never +sufficiently express my thankfulness.</p></div> + +<p>Another letter ran:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">October 25, 1894.</p> + +<p>Oscar: I want to go away and rest somewhere—I think in Cornwall for +two weeks. I am determined to live a truly Christian life, and I +accept poverty as part of my religion, but I must have health. I have +so much to do for my mother.</p></div> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“Now, Mr. Shelley, do you mean to tell the jury that +having in your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> mind, that this man had behaved disgracefully towards you, +you wrote that letter of October 27, 1892?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes. Because after those few occurrences he treated me very +well. He seemed really sorry for what he had done.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“He introduced you to his home?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, to his wife. I dined with them and he seemed to take a +real interest in me.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“You have met Lord Alfred Douglas?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, at his rooms at the ‘Varsity’.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“He was kind to you?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes. He gave me a suit of clothes while I was there.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“And you found two letters in one of the pockets?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“Who from?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“From Mr. Wilde to Lord Alfred.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward</span>.—“How did they begin?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“One was addressed, “Dear Alfred”, and the other to “Dear +Bogie.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span><span class="smcap">Solicitor-General.</span>—“When +did you first meet Lord Alfred?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“At Taylor’s rooms in Little College Street.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Solicitor-General.</span>—“Then you visited him at the University?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes.”</p> + +<p>The Solicitor-General then proceeded to ask the witness as to the terms +upon which Wilde and Lord Alfred appeared to be; but this has been a +prohibited topic from first to last and was now successfully objected to.</p> + +<p>Charles Parker was called and he repeated his evidence at great length, +relating the most disgusting facts in a perfectly serene manner. He said +that Wilde invariably began his “campaign”—before arriving at the final +nameless act—with indecencies. He used to require the witness to do what +is vulgarly known as “tossing him off”, explained Parker quite unabashed, +“and he would often do the same to me. He suggested two or three times +that I should permit him to insert “it” in my mouth, but I never allowed +that.” He gave other details equally shocking.</p> + +<p>A few other witnesses were examined, and the rest of the day having been +spent in the reading over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of the evidence, Sir Edward Clarke submitted +that in respect of certain counts of the indictment there was no evidence +to go to the jury.</p> + +<p>The Solicitor-General submitted that there was ample evidence to go to the +jury, who alone could decide as to whether or not it was worthy of belief.</p> + +<p>The Judge said he thought the point in respect to the Savoy Hotel incident +was just on the line, but he thought that the wiser and safer course was +to allow the count in respect of this matter to go to the jury. At the +same time, he felt justified, if the occasion should arise, in reserving +the point for the Court of Appeal. He was inclined to think it was a +matter, the responsibility of deciding which, rested with the jury.</p> + +<p>Sir Edward Clarke submitted next that there was no corroboration of the +evidence of this witness. The letters of Shelley pointed to the inference +that the latter might have been the victim of delusions, and, judging from +his conduct in the witness-box, he appeared to have a peculiar sort of +exaltation in and for himself.</p> + +<p>The Solicitor-General maintained that Shelley’s evidence was corroborated +as far as it could possibly be. Of course, in a case of this kind there +was an enormous difficulty in producing corroboration of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> eye-witnesses to +the actual commission of the alleged act.</p> + +<p>The judge held that Shelley must be treated on the footing of an +accomplice. He adhered, after a most careful consideration of the point, +to his former view, that there was no corroboration of the nature required +by the Act to warrant conviction, and therefore he felt justified in +withdrawing that count from the jury.</p> + +<p>Sir Edward Clarke made the same submission in the case of Wood.</p> + +<p>The Solicitor General protested against any decision being given on these +questions other than by a verdict of the jury. In his opinion the case of +the man Wood could not be withheld from the jury. He submitted that there +was every element of strong corroboration of Wood’s story, having regard +especially to the strange and suspicious circumstances under which Wilde +and Wood became acquainted.</p> + +<p>Sir Edward Clarke quoted from the summing-up of Mr. Justice Charles on the +last trial relative to the directions which he gave the jury in the law +respecting the corroboration of the evidence of an accomplice.</p> + +<p>The judge was of opinion that the count affecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Wood ought to go to the +jury, and he gave reasons why it ought not to be withheld.</p> + +<p>Sir Edward Clarke after a private passage of arms with the +Solicitor-General in respect to the need for corroborative evidence, then +began a brief, but able appeal to the jury on behalf of his client, after +which Wilde entered the witness-box. He formally denied the allegations +against him. Sir Frank Lockwood, in cross-examination: “Now, Mr. Wilde, I +should like you to tell me where Lord A. Douglas is now?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“He is in Paris, at the Hotel des Deux Mondes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“How long has he been there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Three weeks.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Have you been in communication with him?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Certainly. These charges are founded on sand. Our friendship is +founded on a rock. There has been no need to cancel our acquaintance.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Was Lord Alfred in London at the time of the trial of the +Marquis of Queensberry?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Yes, for about three weeks. He went abroad at my request before +the first trial on these counts came on.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“May +we take it that the two letters from you to him were samples of the kind you wrote him?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“No. They were exceptional letters born of the two exceptional +letters he sent to me. It is possible, I assure you, to express poetry in +prose.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“I will read one of these prose-poem letters. Do you think +this line is decent, addressed to a young man? “Your rose-red lips which +are made for the music of song and the madness of kissing.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“It was like a sonnet of Shakespeare. It was a fantastic, +extravagant way of writing to a young man. It does not seem to be a +question of whether it is proper or not.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“I used the word decent.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Decent, oh yes.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Do you think you understand the word, Sir?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I do not see anything indecent in it, it was an attempt to +address in beautiful phraseology a young man who had much culture and +charm.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“How many times have you been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> in the College Street +‘snuggery’ of the man Taylor?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I do not think more than five or six times.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Who did you meet there?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Sidney Mavor and Schwabe—I cannot remember any others. I have +not been there since I met Wood there.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“With regard to the Savoy Hotel Witnesses?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“Their evidence is quite untrue.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“You deny that the bed-linen was marked in the way described?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“I do not examine bed-linen when I arise. I am not a housemaid.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Frank</span>.—“Were the stains there, Sir?”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Witness.</span>—“If they were there, they were not caused in the way the +Prosecution most filthily suggests.”</p> + +<p>Sir Edward Clarke, after a slight “breeze” with the Solicitor-General as +to the right to the last word to the jury, then addressed that devoted +band of men for the third time, and asked for the acquittal of his client +on all the counts.</p> + +<p>Sir Frank Lockwood also addressed the jury and the Court then adjoined.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>Next day the Solicitor-General, resuming his speech on behalf of the Crown +dealt in details with the arguments of Sir E. Clarke in defence of Wilde, +and commented in strong terms on observations that he made respecting the +lofty situation of Wilde, with his literary accomplishments, for the +purpose of influencing the judgment of the young. He said that the jury +ought to discard absolutely any such appeal, to apply simply their +common-sense to the testimony; and to form a conclusion on the evidence, +which he submitted fully established the charges.</p> + +<p>He was commenting on another branch of the case, when Sir E. Clarke +interposed on the ground that the learned Solicitor-General was alluding +to incidents connected with another trial. The Solicitor-General +maintained that he was strictly within his rights, and the Judge held that +the latter was entitled to make the comments objected to. “My learned +friend does not appear to have gained a great deal by his superfluity of +interruption”, remarked the Solicitor-General suavely, and the Court +laughed loudly. The Judge said that this sort of thing was most offensive +to him. It was painful enough to have to try such a case and keep the +scales of justice evenly balanced without the Court being pestered with +meaningless laughter and applause. If such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> conduct were repeated he would +have the Court cleared.</p> + +<p>The Solicitor-General then criticised the answers given by Wilde to the +charges, which explanations he submitted, were not worthy of belief. The +jury could not fail to put the interpretation on the conduct of the +accused that he was a guilty man and they ought to say so by their +verdict.</p> + +<p>The Judge, in summing-up, referred to the difficulties of the case in some +of its features. He regretted, that if the conspiracy counts were +unnecessary, or could not be established, they should have been placed in +the indictment. The jury must not surrender their own independent judgment +in dealing with the facts and ought to discard everything which was not +relevant to the issue before them, or did not assist their judgment.</p> + +<p>He did not desire to comment more than he could help about Lord Alfred +Douglas or the Marquis of Queensberry, but the whole of this lamentable +enquiry arose through the defendant’s association with Lord A. Douglas.</p> + +<p>He did not think that the action of the Marquis of Queensberry in leaving +the card at the defendant’s club, whatever motives he had, was that of a +gentleman. The jury were entitled to consider that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>these alleged acts +happened some years ago. They ought to be the best judges as to the +testimony of the witnesses and whether it was worthy of belief.</p> + +<p>The letters written by the accused to Lord A. Douglas were undoubtedly +open to suspicion, and they had an important bearing on Wood’s evidence. +There was no corroboration of Wood as to the visit to Tite Street, and if +his story had been true, he thought that some corroboration might have +been obtained. Wood belonged to the vilest class of person which Society +was pestered with, and the jury ought not to believe his story unless +satisfactorily corroborated.</p> + +<p>Their decision must turn on the character of the first introduction of +Wilde to Wood. Did they believe that Wilde was actuated by charitable +motives or by improper motives?</p> + +<p>The foreman of the jury, interposing at this stage, asked whether a +warrant had been issued for the arrest of Lord Alfred Douglas and if not, +whether it was intended to issue one.</p> + +<p>The Judge said he could not tell, but he thought not. It was a matter they +could not now discuss. The granting of a warrant depended not upon the +inferences to be drawn from the letters referred to in the case, but on +the production of evidence of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> specific acts. There was a disadvantage in +speculating on this question. They must deal with the evidence before them +and with that alone. The foreman said, “If we are to deduce from the +letters it applies to Lord Alfred Douglas equally as to the defendant.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Judge.</span>—“In regard to the question as to the absence of Lord A. +Douglas, I warn you not to be influenced by any consideration of the kind. +All that they knew was that Lord A. Douglas went to Paris shortly after +the last trial and had remained there since. He felt sure that if the +circumstances justified it, the necessary proceedings could be taken.”</p> + +<p>His lordship dealt with each of the charges, and the evidence in support +of them, and he then, after thanking the jury for the patient manner in +which they had attended to the case, left the issues in their hands.</p> + +<p>The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three o’clock and +at half past five they returned into Court.</p> + + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><strong>THE VERDICT</strong></p> + +<p>Amidst breathless excitement, the Foreman, in answer to the usual formal +questions, announced the verdict, “Guilty.”</p> + +<p>Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Clarke</span>.—“I apply, my lord, for a postponement of sentence.”</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Judge</span>.—“I must certainly refuse that request. I can only characterise +the offences as the worst that have ever come under my notice. I have, +however, no wish to add to the pain that must be felt by the defendants. I +sentence both Wilde and Taylor to two years imprisonment with hard +labour.”</p> + +<p>The sentence was met with some cries of “shame”, “a scandalous verdict”, +“unjust,” by certain persons in Court. The two prisoners appeared dazed +and Wilde especially seemed ready to faint as he was hurried out of sight +to the cells.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>Thus perished by his own act a man who might have made a lasting mark in +British Literature and secured for himself no mean place in the annals of +his time.</p> + +<p>He forfeited, in the pursuit of forbidden pleasures,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> if pleasures they +can be called, all and everything that made life dear.</p> + +<p>He entered upon his incarceration bankrupt in reputation, in friends, in +pocket, and had not even left to him the poor shreds of his own +self-esteem.</p> + +<p>He went into gaol, knowing that if he emerged alive, the darkness would +swallow him up and that his world—the spheres which had delighted to +honour him—would know him no more.</p> + +<p>He had covered his name with infamy and sank his own celebrity in a slough +of slime and filth.</p> + +<p>He would die to leave behind him what?—the name of a man who was +absolutely governed by his own vices and to whom no act of immorality was +too foul or horrible.</p> + +<p>Oscar Wilde emerged from prison in every way a broken man. The wonderful +descriptive force of the <i>Ballad of Reading Gaol</i>; the perfect, torturing +self-analysis of <i>De Profundis</i> speak eloquently of powers unimpaired; but +they were the swan-songs of a once great mind. All his abilities had fled. +He seemed unable to concentrate his mind upon anything. He took up certain +subjects, played with them, and wearied of them in a day. French authors +did not ostracise the erratic English genius when he hid himself amongst +them and they honestly <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>endeavoured to find him employment. But his +faculties had been blunted by the horrors of prison life. His epigrams had +lost their edge. His aphorisms were trite and aimless. He abandoned every +subject he took up, in despair. His mind died before his body. He suffered +from a complete mental atrophy. A nightingale cannot sing in a cage. A +genius cannot flourish in a prison. He died in two years and is now—the +merest memory! Let us remember this of him: if he sinned much, he suffered +much.</p> + +<p>Peace to his ashes!</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img04.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> +<h2>HIS LAST BOOK<br /> +AND HIS LAST YEARS IN PARIS<br /> +<i>By</i> “<i>A</i>”<br /> +(LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS?)</h2> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> +<div class="note"><p>The following three articles, two of them from the “St. James’s +Gazette” and one from the “Motorist”, are marked with so much good +sense and dissipate so many errors touching Oscar Wilde’s last Years +in Paris that the publisher deemed it a duty to reproduce them here as +a permanent answer to the wild legends circulated about the subject of +this book.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p></div> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img05.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="title">OSCAR WILDE</p> +<p class="title">His last Book and his last Years</p> + + +<p><br /><i>The publication of Oscar Wilde’s last book, “De Profundis,” has revived +interest in the closing scenes of his life, and we to-day print the first +of two articles dealing with his last years in Paris from a source which +puts their authenticity beyond question.</i></p> + +<p><i>The one question which inevitably suggested itself to the reader of “De +Profundis,” was, “What was the effect of his prison reflections on his +subsequent life?” The book is full not only of frank admissions of the +error of his ways, but of projects for his future activity. “I hope,” he +wrote, in reply to some criticisms on the relations of art and morals, “to +live long enough to produce work of such a character that I shall be able +at the end of my days to say, “Yes, that is just where the artistic life +leads a man!” He mentions in particular two subjects on which he proposed +to write, “Christ as the Precursor of the Romantic Movement in Life” and +“The Artistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> Life Considered in its Relation to Conduct.” These +resolutions were never carried out, for reasons some of which the writer +of the following article indicates.</i></p> + +<p><i>Oscar Wilde was released from prison in May, 1897. He records in his +letters the joy of the thought that at that time “both the lilac and the +laburnum will be blooming in the gardens.” The closing sentences of the +book may be recalled: “Society, as we have constituted it, will have no +place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on +unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and +secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the +night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without +stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me +to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs +make me whole.”</i></p> + +<p><i>He died in November, 1900, three years and a half after his release from +Reading Gaol.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>Monsieur Joseph Renaud, whose translation of Oscar Wilde’s “Intentions” +has just appeared in Paris, has given a good example of how history is +made in his preface to that work. He recounts an obviously imaginary +meeting between himself and Oscar Wilde in a bar on the Boulevard des +Italiens. He concludes the episode, such as it is, with these words: +“Nothing remained of him but his musical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> voice and his large blue +childlike eyes.” Oscar Wilde’s eyes were curious—long, narrow, and green. +Anything less childlike it would be hard to imagine. To the physiognomist +they were his most remarkable feature, and redeemed his face from the +heaviness that in other respects characterised it. So much for M. Joseph +Renaud’s powers of observation.</p> + +<p>The complacent unanimity with which the chroniclers of Oscar Wilde’s last +years in Paris have accepted and spread the “legend” of his life in that +city is remarkable, and would be exasperating considering its utter +falsity to anyone who was not aware of their incompetence to deal with the +subject. Scarcely one of his self-constituted biographers had more than +the very slightest acquaintance with him, and their records and +impressions of him are chiefly made up of stale gossip and secondhand +anecdotes. The stories of his supposed privations, his frequent inability +to obtain a square meal, his lonely and tragic death in a sordid lodging, +and his cheap funeral are all grotesquely false.</p> + +<p>True, Oscar Wilde, who for several years before his conviction had been +making at least £5,000 a year, found it very hard to live on his rather +precarious income after he came out of prison; he was often very “hard +up,” and often did not know where to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> turn for a coin, but I will +undertake to prove to anyone whom it may concern that from the day he left +prison till the day of his death his income averaged at least £400 a year. +He had, moreover, far too many devoted friends in Paris ever to be in need +of a meal provided he would take the trouble to walk a few hundred yards +or take a cab to one of half a dozen houses. His death certainly was +tragic—deaths are apt to be tragic—but he was surrounded by friends when +he died, and his funeral was not cheap; I happen to have paid for it in +conjunction with another friend of his, so I ought to know.</p> + +<p>He did not become a Roman Catholic before he died. He was, at the instance +of a great friend of his, himself a devout Catholic, “received into the +Church” a few hours before he died; but he had then been unconscious for +many hours, and he died without ever having any idea of the liberty that +had been taken with his unconscious body. Whether he would have approved +or not of the step taken by his friend is a matter on which I should not +like to express a too positive opinion, but it is certain that it would +not do him any harm, and, apart from all questions of religion and +sentiment, it facilitated the arrangements which had to be made for his +interment in a Catholic country, in view of the fact that no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> member of +his family took any steps to claim his body or arrange for his funeral.</p> + +<p>Having disposed of certain false impressions in regard to various facts of +his life and death in Paris, I may turn to what are less easily controlled +and examined theories as to that life. Without wishing to be paradoxical, +or harshly destructive of the carefully cherished sentiment of poetic +justice so dear to the British mind (and the French mind, too, for that +matter), I give it as my firm opinion that Oscar Wilde was, on the whole, +fairly happy during the last years of his life. He had an extraordinarily +buoyant and happy temperament, a splendid sense of humour, and an +unrivalled faculty for enjoyment of the present. Of course, he had his bad +moments, moments of depression and sense of loss and defeat, but they were +not of long duration. It was part of his pose to luxuriate a little in the +details of his tragic circumstances. He harrowed the feelings of many of +those whom he came across; words of woe poured from his lips; he painted +an image of himself, destitute, abandoned, starving even (I have heard him +use the word after a very good dinner at Paillard’s); as he proceeded he +was caught by the pathos of his own words, his beautiful voice trembled +with emotion, his eyes swam with tears; and then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> suddenly, by a swift, +indescribably brilliant, whimsical touch, a swallow-wing flash on the +waters of eloquence, the tone changed and rippled with laughter, bringing +with it his audience, relieved, delighted, and bubbling into +uncontrollable merriment.</p> + +<p>He never lost his marvellous gift of talking; after he came out of prison +he talked better than before. Everyone who knew him really before and +after his imprisonment is agreed about that. His conversation was richer, +more human, and generally on a higher intellectual level. In French he +talked as well as in English; to my own English ear his French used to +seem rather laboured and his accent too marked, but I am assured by +Frenchmen who heard him talk that such was not the effect produced on +them.</p> + +<p>He explained to me his inability to write, by saying that when he sat down +to write he always inevitably began to think of his past life, and that +this made him miserable and upset his spirits. As long as he talked and +sat in cafés and “watched life,” as his phrase was, he was happy, and he +had the luck to be a good sleeper, so that only the silence and +self-communing necessary to literary work brought him visions of his +terrible sufferings in the past and made his old wounds bleed again. My +own theory as to his literary sterility at this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> period is that he was +essentially an interpreter of life, and that his existence in Paris was +too narrow and too limited to stir him to creation. At his best he +reflected life in a magic mirror, but the little corner of life he saw in +Paris was not worth reflecting. If he could have been provided with a +brilliant “entourage” of sympathetic listeners as of old and taken through +a gay season in London, he would have begun to write again. Curiously +enough, society was the breath of life to him, and what he felt more than +anything else in his “St. Helena” in Paris, as he often told me, was the +absence of the smart and pretty women who in the old days sat at his feet!</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">A.</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img06.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> +<h2>OSCAR WILDE’S<br /> +LAST YEARS IN PARIS.—II</h2> + + +<p>The French possess the faculty, very rare in England, of differentiating +between a man and his work. They are utterly incapable of judging literary +work by the moral character of its author. I have never yet met a +Frenchman who was able to comprehend the attitude of the English public +towards Oscar Wilde after his release from prison. They were completely +mystified by it. An eminent French man-of-letters said to me one day: “You +have a man of genius, he commits crimes, you put him in prison, you +destroy his whole life, you take away his fortune, you ruin his health, +you kill his mother, his wife, and his brother (<i>sic</i>), you refuse to +speak to him, you exile him from your country. That is very severe. In +France we should never so treat a man of genius, but <i>enfin ça peut se +comprendre</i>. But not content with that, you taboo his books and his plays, +which before you enjoyed and admired, and <i>pour comble de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> tout</i> you are +very angry if he goes into a restaurant and orders himself some dinner. +<i>Il faut pourtant qu’il mange ce pauvre homme!</i>” If I had been +representing the British public in an official capacity I should have +probably given expression to its views and furnished a sufficient repartee +to my voluble French friend by replying: “<i>Je n’en vois pas la +nécessité</i>.”</p> + +<p>Fortunately for Oscar Wilde, the French took another view of the attitude +to adopt towards a man who has offended against society, and who has been +punished for it. Never by a word or a hint did they show that they +remembered that offence, which, in their view, had been atoned for and +wiped out. Oscar Wilde remained for them always <i>un grand homme, un +maître</i>, a distinguished man, to be treated with deference and respect +and, because he had suffered much, with sympathy. It says a great deal for +the innate courtesy and chivalry of the French character that a man in +Oscar Wilde’s position, as well known by sight, as he once remarked to me, +as the Eiffel Tower, should have been able to go freely about in theatres, +restaurants, and cafés without encountering any kind of hostility or even +impertinent curiosity.</p> + +<p>It was this benevolent attitude of Paris towards him that enabled him to +live and, in a fashion, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> enjoy life. His audience was sadly reduced and +precarious, and except on some few occasions it was of inferior +intellectual calibre; but still he had an audience, and an audience to him +was everything. Nor was he altogether deprived of the society of men of +his own class and value. Many of the most brilliant young writers in +France were proud to sit at his feet and enjoy his brilliant conversation, +chief among whom I may mention that accomplished critic and essayist, +Monsieur Ernest Lajeunesse, who is the author of what is perhaps the best +posthumous notice of him that has been published in France in that +excellent magazine, the “Revue blanche”; among older men who kept up their +friendship with him, Octave Mirbeau, Moréas, Paul Fort, Henri Bauer, and +Jean Lorrain may be mentioned.</p> + +<p>In contrast to this attitude taken up towards him by so many distinguished +and eminent men, I cannot refrain from recalling the attitude adopted by +the general run of English-speaking residents in Paris. For the credit of +my country I am glad to be able to put them down mostly as Americans, or +at any rate so Americanised by the constant absorption of “American +drinks” as to be indistinguishable from the genuine article. These +gentlemen “guessed they didn’t want Oscar Wilde to be sitting around”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> in +the bars where they were in the habit of shedding the light of their +presence, and from one of these establishments Oscar Wilde was requested +by the proprietor to withdraw at the instance of one of our “American +cousins” who is now serving a term of two years penal servitude for +holding up and robbing a bank!</p> + +<p>Oscar Wilde, to do him justice, bore this sort of rebuff with astonishing +good temper and sweetness. His sense of humour and his invincible +self-esteem kept him from brooding over what to another man might have +appeared intolerable, and he certainly possessed the philosophical +temperament to a greater extent than any other man I have ever come +across. Every now and then one or other of the very few faithful English +friends left to him would turn up in Paris and take him to dinner at one +of the best restaurants, and anyone who met him on one of these occasions +would have found it difficult to believe that he had ever passed through +such awful experiences. Whether he was expounding some theory, grave or +fantastic, embroidering it the while with flashes of impromptu wit or +deepening it with extraordinary and intimate learning (for, as Ernest +Lajeunesse says, <i>he knew everything</i>), or whether he was “keeping the +table in a roar” with his delightfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> whimsical humour, summer-lightning +that flashed and hurt no one, he was equally admirable. To have lived in +his lifetime and not to have heard him talk is as though one had lived for +years at Athens without going to look at the Parthenon.</p> + +<p>I wish I could remember one-hundredth part of the good things he said. He +was extraordinarily quick in answer and repartee, and anyone who says that +his wit was the result of preparation and midnight oil can never have +heard him speak. I remember once at dinner a friend of his who had +formerly been in the “Blues,” pointing out that in the opening stanza of +“The Ballad of Reading Jail” he had made a mistake in speaking of the +“scarlet coat” of the man who was hanged; he was, as the dedication of the +poem says, a private in the “Blues,” and his coat would therefore +naturally not be scarlet. The lines go—</p> + +<p class="poem">He did not wear his scarlet coat,<br /> +For blood and wine are red.</p> + +<p>“Well, what could I do,” said Oscar Wilde plaintively, “I couldn’t very +well say</p> + +<p class="poem">He did not wear his azure coat,<br /> +For blood and wine are blue—</p> + +<p>could I?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>The last time I saw him was about three months before he died. I took him +to dinner at the Grand Café. He was then perfectly well and in the highest +spirits. All through dinner he kept me delighted and amused. Only +afterwards, just before I left him, he became rather depressed. He +actually told me that he didn’t think he was going to live long; he had a +presentiment, he said. I tried to turn it off into a joke, but he was +quite serious. “Somehow,” he said, “I don’t think I shall live to see the +new century.” Then a long pause. “If another century began, and I was +still alive, it would be really more than the English could stand.” And so +I left him, never to see him alive again.</p> + +<p>Just before he died he came to, after a long period of unconsciousness and +said to a faithful friend who sat by his bedside, “I have had a dreadful +dream; I dreamt that I dined with the dead.” “My dear Oscar,” replied his +friend, “I am sure you were the life and soul of the party.” “Really, you +are sometimes very witty,” replied Oscar Wilde, and I believe those are +his last recorded words. The jest was admirable and in his own <i>genre</i>; it +was prompted by ready wit and kindness, and because of it Oscar Wilde went +off into his last unconscious phase, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> lasted for twelve hours, with +a smile on his lips. I cherish a hope that it is also prophetic, Death +would have no terrors for me if only I were sure of “dining with the +dead.”<a name='fna_14' id='fna_14' href='#f_14'><small>[14]</small></a></p> + + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img02.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> +<h2>“DE PROFUNDIS”</h2> +<p class="title"><i>A Criticism by</i> “<i>A</i>”</p> +<p class="title">(LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS?)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> +<p class="center">“The English are very fond of a man who admits he has been wrong.”<br /> +(<i>The Ideal Husband</i>).</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img07.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="title">“DE PROFUNDIS”</p> +<p class="center"><i>A Criticism by</i></p> +<p class="center">Lord Alfred Douglas</p> + + +<p><br />In a painful passage in this interesting posthumous book (it takes the +form of a letter to an unnamed friend), Oscar Wilde relates how, on +November the 13th, 1895, he stood for half an hour on the platform of +Clapham Junction, handcuffed and in convict dress, surrounded by an amused +and jeering mob. “For a year after that was done to me,” he writes, “I +wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time.” That was +before he had discovered or thought he had discovered that his terrible +experiences in prison, his degradation and shame were a part, and a +necessary part, of his artistic life, a completion of his incomplete soul. +After he had learnt humility in the bitterest school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> that “man’s +inhumanity to man” provides for unwilling scholars, after he had drained +the cup of sorrow to the dregs, after his spirit was broken—he wrote this +book in which he tried to persuade himself and others that he had learnt +by suffering and despair what life and pleasure had never taught him.</p> + +<p>If Oscar Wilde’s spirit, returning to this world in a malicious mood, had +wished to devise a pleasant and insinuating trap for some of his old +enemies of the press, he could scarcely have hit on a better one than this +book. I am convinced it was written in passionate sincerity at the time, +and yet it represents a mere mood and an unimportant one of the man who +wrote it, a mood too which does not even last through the 150 pages of the +book. “The English are very fond of a man who admits he has been wrong,” +he makes one of his characters in “The Ideal Husband” say, and elsewhere +in this book he compares the advantages of pedestals and pillories in +their relation to the public’s attitude towards himself. Well here he is +in the pillory, and here also is Mr. Courtney in the “Daily Telegraph” +getting quite fond of him for the very first time. Here is Oscar Wilde, “a +genius,” “incontestably one of the greatest dramatists of modern times” as +he is now graciously allowed to be, turning up unexpectedly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> with an +admission that he was in the wrong, and telling us that his life and his +art would have been incomplete without his imprisonment, that he has +learnt humility and found a new mode of expression in suffering. He is +“purged by grief,” “chastened by suffering,” and everything, in short, +that he should be, and Mr. Courtney is touched and pleased. What Mr. +Courtney and others have failed to realise, and what Wilde himself did +realise very soon after he wrote this interesting but rather pathetically +ineffective book, is that the mood which produced it was no other than the +first symptom of that mental and physical disease generated by suffering +and confinement which culminated in the death of its gifted and +unfortunate author a few years later. As long as the spirit of revolt was +left in Oscar Wilde, so long was left the fire of creative genius. When +the spirit of revolt died, the flame began to subside, and continued to +subside gradually with spasmodic flickers till its ultimate extinction. “I +have got to make everything that has happened good for me.” He writes, +“The plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard rope shredded into oakum till +one’s finger tips grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each +day begins, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, the +dreadful dress that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> makes sorrow grotesque to look at, the silence, the +solitude, the shame—each and all these things I have to transform into a +spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation of the body which +I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul.” But, alas! +plank beds, loathsome food, menial offices, and oakum picking do not +spiritualise the soul; at any rate, they did not spiritualise Oscar +Wilde’s soul. The only effect they had was to destroy his magnificent +intellect, and even, as some passages in this book show to temporarily +cloud his superb sense of humour. The return of freedom gave him back the +sense of humour, and the wreck of his magnificent intellect served him so +well to the end of his life that, although he had hopelessly lost the +power of concentration necessary to the production of literary work, he +remained to the day of his death the most brilliant and the most +intellectual talker in Europe.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed, however, that this book is not a remarkable book +and one which is not worth careful reading. There are fine prose passages +in it, and occasional felicities of phrase which recall the Oscar Wilde of +“The House of Pomegranates” and the “Prose-Poems,” and here and there +rather unexpectedly comes an epigram like this for example: “There were +Christians before Christ. For that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> we should be grateful. The unfortunate +thing is that there have been none since.” True, he spoils the epigram by +adding, “I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi.” A concession to the +tyranny of facts and the relative importance of sincerity to style, which +is most uncharacteristic of the “old Oscar.” Nevertheless, the trace of +the master hand is still visible, and the book contains much that is +profound and subtle on the philosophy of Christ as conceived by this +modern evangelist of the gospel of Life and Literature. One does not +travel further than the 33rd page of the book before finding glaring and +startling inconsistencies in the mental attitude of the writer towards his +fate, for whereas on page 18 in a rather rhetorical passage he speaks of +the “eternal disgrace” he had brought on the “noble and honoured name” +bequeathed him by his father and mother, on page 33 “Reason” tells him +“that the laws under which he was convicted are wrong and unjust laws, and +the system under which he has suffered a wrong and unjust system.” But +this is the spirit of revolt not quite crushed. He says that if he had +been released a year sooner, as in fact he very nearly was, he would have +left his prison full of rage and bitterness, and without the treasure of +his new-found “Humility.” I am unregenerate enough to wish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> that he had +brought his rage and bitterness with him out of prison. True, he would +never have written this book if he had come out of prison a year sooner, +but he would almost certainly have written several more incomparable +comedies, and we who reverenced him as a great artist in words, and +mourned his downfall as an irreparable blow to English Literature would +have been spared the rather painful experience of reading the posthumous +praise now at last so lavishly given to what certainly cannot rank within +measurable distance of his best work.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">A.</span></p> + +<p>From “<i>The Motorist and Traveller</i>” (March 1, 1905).</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img08.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p class="title">LIST<br /> +OF PRIVATELY ISSUED<br /> +HISTORICAL, ARTISTIC,<br /> +AND CLASSICAL WORKS<br /> +IN ENGLISH</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td valign="middle"><span class="thais">Thaïs</span></td> + <td><i>Romance of the Byzantine<br />Empire (Fourth Century)</i></td></tr></table> + +<p class="center">From the French of ANATOLE FRANCE</p> +<p class="center">With Twenty Copper-plate Etchings by Martin van Maele</p> +<p class="center">PRICE 21<i>s.</i></p> + +<div class="note"> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Thaïs</span>” is a work of religious mysticism. The story of the Priest-hero who +sought to stamp out the flames of nature is told with a delicacy and +realism that will at once charm and command the reader’s attention. +Anatole France is one of the most brilliant literary men in the world, and +stands foremost amongst giants like Daudet, Zola, and Maupassant.</p> + +<p><br />The book before us is a historical novel based on the legend of the +conversion of the courtesan Thaïs of Alexandria by a monk of the +Thebaïd. Thaïs may be described as first cousin to the Pelagia of +Charles Kingsley “Hypatia;” indeed, the two books, dealing as they do +with the same place and period, Alexandria in the fourth century, +offer points of resemblance, as well as of difference, many and +various, and sufficiently interesting to be commended to the notice of +students of comparative criticism. There is, however, a subtle and +profound moral lesson about the work of Mr. Anatole France which is +wanting in Kingsley’s shallower and more commonplace conception of +human motive and passion. The keynote is struck in the warning which +an old schoolfellow of the monk Paphnutius addresses to him when he +learns of his intention to snatch Thaïs as a brand from the burning: +“Beware of offending Venus. She is a powerful goddess; she will be +angry with you if you take away her chief minister.” The monk +disregards the warning of the man of the world, and perseveres with +his self-imposed task, and that so successfully that Thaïs forsakes +her life of pleasure, and ultimately expires in the odour of sanctity. +<i>Custodes, sed quis custodiet ipsos?</i> Paphnutius has deceived himself, +and has failed to perceive that what he took for zeal for a lost soul +was in reality but human desire for a fair face. The monk, who has won +Heaven for the beautiful sinner, loses it himself for love of her, and +is left at the end, baffled and blaspheming, before the dead body of +the woman he has loved all the time without knowing that he loved her.</p> + +<p>It is impossible for the reviewer to convey any adequate notion of the +subtle skill with which the author deals with a delicate but intensely +human theme. Alike as a piece of psychical analysis and as a picture +of the age, this book stands head and shoulders above any that we have +ever read about the period with which it deals. It is a work of rare +beauty, and, we may add, of profound moral truth, albeit not written +precisely <i>virginibus puerisque</i>.</p> + +<p>It is emphatically the work of a great artist.—(From a Notice in +“<i>The Pall Mall Gazette</i>”).</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img09.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="title">The Well of Santa Clara</p> + +<div class="note"> +<p>This work is, from the deep interest of its contents, the beauty of its +typography and paper, and the elegance and daring of the illustrations, +one of the finest works in <i>édition de luxe</i> yet offered to the collectors +of rare books.</p> + +<p>Apart from the other stories, all of them written with that exquisite +grace and ironical humour for which Anatole France is unmatched, “The +Human Tragedy,” forming half of the book, is alone worthy to rank amongst +the master-efforts of literature. The dominant idea of “The Human Tragedy” +is foreshadowed by the quotation from Euripedes: <i>All the life of man is +full of pain, and there is no surcease of sorrow. If there be aught better +elsewhere than this present life, it is hid, shrouded in the clouds of +darkness.</i></p> + +<p>The English rendering of this work is, from its purity and strength of +style, a veritable <i>tour de force</i>. The book will be prized and +appreciated by scholars and lovers of the beautiful in art.</p> + +<p>New Grasset characters have been used for this work, limited to 500 +numbered copies on handmade paper; each page of text is contained in an +artistic green border, and the work in its entirety constitutes a volume +of rare excellence.</p> + +<p>Twenty-one clever <span class="smcap">Copper-plate Engravings</span> (in the most finished style) by +<span class="smcap">Martin van Maele</span>.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img10.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">The Well of Santa Clara</p> +<p class="center"><i>CONTENTS</i></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td align="right">Pages</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td colspan="2">Prologue.—The Reverend Father Adone Doni</td> + <td align="right">1</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I.</td> + <td colspan="2">San Satiro</td> + <td align="right">18</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II.</td> + <td colspan="2">Messer Guido Cavalcanti</td> + <td align="right">71</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III.</td> + <td colspan="2">Lucifer</td> + <td align="right">102</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> + <td colspan="2">The Loaves of Black Bread</td> + <td align="right">116</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V.</td> + <td colspan="2">The Merry-hearted Buffalmacco</td> + <td align="right">126</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">I.</td> + <td>The Cockroaches</td> + <td align="right">127</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">II.</td> + <td>The Ascending up of Andria Tafin</td> + <td align="right">143</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">III.</td> + <td>The Master</td> + <td align="right">163</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">IV.</td> + <td>The Painter</td> + <td align="right">172</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> + <td colspan="2">The Lady of Verona</td> + <td align="right">184</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII.</td> + <td colspan="2">The Human Tragedy</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">I.</td> + <td>Fra Giovanni</td> + <td align="right">193</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">II.</td> + <td>The Lamp</td> + <td align="right">206</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">III.</td> + <td>The Seraphic Doctor</td> + <td align="right">210</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">IV.</td> + <td>The Loaf on the Flat Stone</td> + <td align="right">214</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">V.</td> + <td>The Table under the Fig-tree</td> + <td align="right">218</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">VI.</td> + <td>The Temptation</td> + <td align="right">223</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">VII.</td> + <td>The Subtle Doctor</td> + <td align="right">232</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">VIII.</td> + <td>The Burning Coal</td> + <td align="right">245</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">IX.</td> + <td>The House of Innocence</td> + <td align="right">248</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">X.</td> + <td>The Friends of Order</td> + <td align="right">260</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">XI.</td> + <td>The Revolt of Gentleness</td> + <td align="right">271</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">XII.</td> + <td>Words of Love</td> + <td align="right">280</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">XIII.</td> + <td>The Truth</td> + <td align="right">288</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">XIV.</td> + <td>Giovanni’s Dream</td> + <td align="right">304</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">XV.</td> + <td>The Judgment</td> + <td align="right">317</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td align="right">XVI.</td> + <td>The Prince of this World</td> + <td align="right">326</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td> + <td colspan="2">The Mystic Blood</td> + <td align="right">343</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX.</td> + <td colspan="2">A Sound Security</td> + <td align="right">360</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X.</td> + <td colspan="2">History of Doña Maria d’Avalos and the Duke d’Andria</td> + <td align="right">379</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI.</td> + <td colspan="2">Bonaparte at San Miniato</td> + <td align="right">405</td></tr></table> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Price: One Guinea.</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img09.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">Oscar Wilde’s Works.</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img11.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center"><span class="thais">Poems in Prose:</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><strong>The Artist</strong></td><td rowspan="2"><img src="images/img12.jpg" alt="" /></td> + <td><strong>The Disciple</strong></td></tr> +<tr><td><strong>The Doer of Good</strong></td> + <td><strong>The Master</strong></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><strong>The House of Judgment, etc.</strong></td></tr></table> + +<p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><span class="huge">L</span>imited Edition of Five Hundred Copies on superior English<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">vellum paper, and printed in Grasset characters in</span><br /> +red and black.</td> + <td><span class="spacer"> </span></td> + <td>Price 5s.</td></tr> +<tr><td>Fifty copies on Japanese paper.</td> + <td> </td> + <td>Price 10s.</td></tr></table> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img13.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">OSCAR WILDE:</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">What Never Dies</span></p> + +<p class="center">(Ce qui ne meurt pas)</p> + +<p class="center">One Volume small crown 8vo., bound in white parchment. Nearly 400 pages.</p> + +<p class="center">Price 10s. 6d.</p> + +<div class="note"> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Translated</span> into English by ‘Sebastian Melmoth’ (<span class="smcap">Oscar Wilde</span>), from the +French of <span class="smcap">Barbey d’Aurevilly</span>. A strange and powerful romance of LOVE AND +PASSION IN A COUNTRY HOUSE, similar to the plot unfolded in Guy de +Maupassant’s “Lady’s Man,” but told in even more lordly and brilliant +language; the wonderful French of “Barbey” being rendered into yet more +wonderful English by <span class="smcap">Oscar Wilde</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img13.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td rowspan="2"><span class="large">Sole<br />Authorized <br />Version</span></td> + <td><span class="huge">THE PICTURE<br />OF DORIAN GRAY</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="large">By Oscar Wilde</span></td></tr></table> + +<p class="center"><i>Limited Edition of One Hundred Copies on Real<br />Hand-made English paper, Price 15s.</i></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><strong>Translated from the Latin by</strong><br /><span class="large">Oscar Wilde</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">The Satyricon of Petronius</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img14.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">A Literal and Complete Translation<br />with Notes and Introduction.</p> +<p class="center">Circular free for 2½d.</p> +<p class="center"><i>Price</i>, £1. 11<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> +<p class="center"><i>Fifteen Copies on Papier de Chine, Price</i> £2. 2s.</p> + +<div class="note"> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">This</span> Edition is not only the ... MOST COMPLETE AND BRILLIANT ever done +into English, but it constitutes also a typographical <i>bijou</i>, being +printed in a limited number on handmade paper in red and black throughout.</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img15.jpg" alt="" /></div> + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img16.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">Unknown Poems by Lord Byron</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img17.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><span class="thais">DON LEON</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td>A Poem<br />by the late</td><td><span class="huge">Lord Byron</span></td></tr></table> + +<p class="center"><small>Author of Childe Harold, Don Juan, etc.</small></p> + +<p class="center">And forming part of the Private<br />Journal of His Lordship, supposed<br />to havebeen entirely destroyed<br />by Thos. Moore.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img18.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td style="white-space: nowrap">“<i>Pardon, dear Tom, these thoughts on days gone by;<br /> +Me men revile and thou must justify.<br /> +Yet in my bosom apprehensions rise<br /> +(For brother poets have their jealousies),<br /> +Lest under false pretences thou shoudst turn<br /> +A faithless friend, and these confessions burn.</i>”</td></tr></table> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img19.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<div class="note"> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">“Don Juan”</span> is generally spoken of as a composition remarkable for its +daring gallantry; but here is a long connected poetical work by the same +Author which far outdistances “Don Juan” both in audacity of conception +and licence of language.</p> + +<p>These poems were issued <i>sub rosâ</i> in 1866, and owing to the fact that +interested persons bought up immediately on its appearance and burnt the +entire output, any stray copies that chanced to escape the general +destruction, when they turn up nowadays, fetch from Five to Ten Guineas +each.</p></div> + +<p class="center"><i>The size of the book is small crown octavo,<br />134 pp., in artistic paper wrappers.</i></p> + +<p class="center">This issue has been limited to Two Hundred and Fifty copies as follows:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right">Price:</td></tr> +<tr><td>175 on Ordinary Vellum paper</td><td>10s.6d.</td></tr> +<tr><td>75 on French hand-made paper</td><td>£1.1s.</td></tr></table> + +<p class="center">Detailed circular on demand for 2d.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">Curious By-Paths of History</span></p> + +<p class="note">Studies of Louis XIV; Richelieu; Mdlle de la Vallière; Madame de +Pompadour; Sophie Arnould’s Sickness; The True Charlotte Corday; A Savage +“Hound;” In the Hands of the “Charcutiers;” Napoleon’s Superstitions; The +Affair of Madame Récamier and Queen Elizabeth of England, etc.</p> + +<div class="note"> +<p>Followed by a fascinating study of</p> + +<p class="center"><strong>FLAGELLATION IN FRANCE from a Medical and Historical Standpoint</strong></p> + +<p>With special Foreword by the Editor, dealing with the Reviewers of a +previous work, and sundry other cognate matters good to be known; +particularly concerning the high-handed proceedings of British +Philistinism, which here receives “a rap on the knuckles.” A fine +realistic Frontispiece after a design by <span class="smcap">Daniel Vierge</span>, etched by <span class="smcap">F. Massé</span>.</p></div> + +<p class="center">The whole (in Two Volumes), Price 21s.</p> + +<p class="center">With this book is given away (undercover) a fine plate entitled <i>CONJUGAL<br /> +CORRECTION</i>, reproduced in Aquatint by the Maison Goupil,<br />of Paris, after +the famous Oil Painting of Correggio.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img20.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><strong>Fascinating Historical Studies by a French Physician.</strong></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img21.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">The Secret Cabinet of History</span></p> + +<p class="center"><strong>Peeped into by a Doctor (Dr. Cabanès)</strong></p> + +<p class="center">Translated by W. C. COSTELLO,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -6em;">And preceded by a letter</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: -9.5em;">from the pen of</span><br /> +M. VICTORIEN SARDOU<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">(de l’Académie française).</span></p> + +<div class="note"> +<p>One stout Volume of 260 pages. Edition limited to 500 Copies, on fine +quality Dutch (Van Gelder) azure paper, with wide margins and untrimmed +edges, specially manufactured for this Edition; cloth bound.</p> + +<p class="center">Price 12s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>The “get up” of the book will please all who like beautiful printing and +choice paper.</i></p> + +<p>Although the bizarre character of some of the subjects may tempt us to +imagine that it is all a fiction, torn from the “Arabian Nights,” and +placed in an Eighteenth Century setting, the references and authorities +marshalled by Dr. Cabanès will quickly convince the sceptically inclined +that the whole is based on unimpeachable documents.</p></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><strong>“Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles”</strong><br /> +(Louis XI.)<br /> +Done now for the first time into English.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories</span><br /> +<strong>right pleasaunte to relate in all goodly compagnie by way of joyaunce and jollity</strong></p> + +<p class="center">Two volumes demy 8vo., over 526 pages on fine English antique<br />deckle-edged +paper, with <span class="smcap">Fifty Coloured Illustrations</span> by<br />LÉON LEBÈQUE, the whole +strongly bound in<br />English water-coloured Silk Cloth.<br />Price £3.3s.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img22.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">500 NUMBERED COPIES PRINTED<br /> +For England and America<br /> +ALSO 75 LARGE NUMBERED COPIES<br /> +Printed on Japanese vellum<br /> +PRICE: £5. 5s. net</p> + +<div class="note"> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Although</span> this work has been published many times in French during the last +four-and-a half centuries, it has never hitherto been done into English, +and in fact is little known in England at all on account of its archaic +form, which renders the reading of the original impossible to any but a +student of old French.</p> + +<p>Very little inferior to Boccaccio and far superior to the Heptameron, the +stories possess a brightness and gaiety entirely their own; moreover they +are of high literary merit.</p></div> + +<p class="center">Illustrated Circular free by post for 5d.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img23.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">The ...<br />Evolution and Dissolution of the Sexual Instinct ...</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img24.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">By ... Doctor Charles FÉRÉ of the Bicêtre Hospital, (PARIS)</p> + +<p class="center">Price: 21s.</p> + +<div class="note"> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">“Truth</span> and science are never immoral; but it cannot be denied that the +narration of facts relating to sexual physiology and pathology, if their +real significance is not pointed out, may be the cause of perversion in +the case of predisposed subjects. The danger appears more serious to those +who think that normal individuals may be perverted under the influence of +environment, and yet more serious when the sexual instinct is represented +as an uncontrollable instinct, which nobody can resist, however abnormal +the form in which the instinct may reveal itself.”</p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><strong>The Only Worthy Translation into French</strong></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img25.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><span class="large">OSCAR WILDE</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">Intentions</span></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img26.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">Traduction française de HUGUES REBELL</p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img26.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">Préface de CHARLES GROLLEAU</p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img26.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center"><i>Orné d’un portrait</i></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img26.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">Un volume in-8o carré. Impression de luxe sur <i>antique vellum</i>.<br /> +Prix: 6 francs.</p> + +<p class="center">Il a été tiré <i>trente</i> exemplaires sur Japon impérial.<br /> +Prix: 12 francs.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img27.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center">PARIS<br /> +CHARLES CARRINGTON, LIBRAIRE-EDITEUR<br /> +13, Faubourg Montmartre, 13<br /> +1906</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="large">NOTICE</span></p> + +<div class="note"> +<p>“<strong>INTENTIONS</strong>” est un des ouvrages les plus curieux qui se puisse lire. On y +trouve tout l’esprit, si paradoxal, toute l’étonnante culture du brillant +écrivain que fut <strong>Oscar WILDE</strong>.</p> + +<p>Des cinq <i>Essais</i> que contient ce livre, trois sont sous forme de dialogue +et donnent l’impression parfaite de ce qui fut le plus grand prestige de +WILDE: la Causerie.</p> + +<p>La traduction que nous publions aujourd’hui, outre sa fidélité scrupuleuse +et son incontestable élégance, offre cet attrait particulier d’être le +dernier travail d’un des jeunes maîtres de la prose française, Hugues +REBELL, qui l’acheva peu de jours avant sa mort.</p> + +<p>La préface de M. Charles GROLLEAU, écrite avec une délicatesse remarquable +et une émotion pénétrante, constitue la plus subtile étude psychologique +que l’on ait jamais publiée sur Oscar WILDE.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img27.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="note"> +<p>Sous presse:</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Du même Auteur</i>:</span><br /> +Poèmes en Prose.<br /> +La Duchesse de Padoue.<br /> +La Maison des Grenades.</p></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="note"> +<p>L’œuvre d’Oscar Wilde demande à être traduite à la fois avec précision +et avec art. Les phrases ont des significations si ténues et le choix des +mots est si habile qu’une traduction défectueuse, abondante en contre-sens +ou en coquilles, risquerait de décevoir grandement le lecteur. Car il faut +bien compter que ceux qui se soucient de connaître Oscar Wilde ne peuvent +être ni des concierges ni des cochers de fiacre; ils n’appartiennent +certainement pas à ce «grand public» qui se délecte aux émouvants +feuilletons de nos quotidiens populaires ou qui savoure avidement les +élucubrations égrillardes de certains fabricants de prétendue littérature. +C’est ce qu’avait compris l’éditeur Carrington quand il chargea Hugues +Rebell de lui traduire <i>Intentions</i>. Ces essais d’Oscar Wilde représentent +plus particulièrement le côté paradoxal et frondeur de sa personalité. Il +y exprime ses idées ou plutôt ses subtilités esthétiques; il y «cause» +plus qu’ailleurs, à tel point que trois de ces essais sur cinq sont +dialogués; l’auteur s’entretient avec des personnages qu’il suppose aussi +cultivés, aussi beaux esprits que lui-même: «s’entretient» est beaucoup +dire, car ce sont plutôt des contradicteurs auxquels il suggère les +objections dont il a besoin pour poursuivre le développement et le +triomphe de ses arguments. La conversation vagabonde à plaisir et le +causeur y fait étalage de toutes les richesses de son esprit, de son +imagination, de sa mémoire. Au milieu de ces citations, de ces allusions, +de ces exemples innombrables empruntés à tous les temps et à tous les +pays, le traducteur a chance de s’égarer s’il n’est lui-même homme d’une +culture très sûre et très variée. Hugues Rebell pouvait, sans danger de +paraître ignorant ou ridicule, entreprendre de donner une version +d’<i>Intentions</i>. Il n’avait certes pas fait de la littérature anglaise +contemporaine, non plus que d’aucune époque, l’objet d’études spéciales. +Mais il connaissait cette littérature dans son ensemble beaucoup mieux que +certains qui s’autorisent de quelques excursions à Londres pour clamer à +tout venant leur compétence douteuse. J’ai souvenir de maintes occasions +où Rebell, avec cet air mystérieux qu’il ne pouvait s’empêcher de prendre +pour les choses les plus simples, m’attirait à l’écart de tel groupe +d’amis, où la conversation était générale, pour me parler de tel jeune +auteur sur qui l’une de mes chroniques avait attiré son attention. Et, +chaque fois, il faisait preuve, en ces matières, d’un savoir très étendu.</p> + +<p>Hugues Rebell fit donc cette nécessaire traduction, et, dit l’éditeur dans +une note préliminaire, «c’est le dernier travail auquel il put se livrer. +Il nous en remit les derniers feuillets peu de jours avant sa mort». +Rebell devait préfacer ce travail d’une étude sur la vie et les oeuvres du +poète anglais, étude qu’il ne put qu’ébaucher, malheureusement, car, avec +Gide,—mais celui-ci d’un point de vue différent et peut-être opposé,—il +était exclusivement qualifié pour saisir, démêler et interpréter l’étrange +personnalité de Wilde. Quelques fragments de cette étude nous sont donnés +cependant et ils nous font très vivement regretter que le vigoureux et +paradoxal auteur de l’<i>Union des Trois Aristocraties</i> n’ait pu achever son +travail.</p> + +<p>Mais ce regret bien légitime se mitige grandement à mesure qu’on lit la +belle préface de M. Charles Grolleau. Prenant pour épigraphe cette pensée +de Pascal: «Je blâme également et ceux qui prennent le parti de louer +l’homme, et ceux qui le prennent de le blâmer, et ceux qui le prennent de +se divertir; et je ne puis approuver que ceux qui cherchent en gémissant», +M. Grolleau s’efforce de comprendre et de résoudre ce «douloureux +problème» que fut Wilde. Et il le fait avec cette réserve et ce parfait +bon goût que doivent s’imposer les véritables amis et les sincères +admirateurs d’Oscar Wilde. Il y a plus, dans ces cinquante pages: il y a +l’une des meilleures études qui aient jamais été faites du brillant +dramaturge. Bien qu’il s’en défende, M. Grolleau, dans cette langue +élégante et harmonieuse que lui connaissent ceux qui ont lu ses beaux +vers, réussit a discerner mieux et à mieux révéler que certaines diatribes +«l’âme et la passion» de l’auteur de <i>De Profundis</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Je me suis interdit d’écrire une biographie. Je ne connais que +l’écrivain, et l’homme est trop vivant encore et si blessé! J’ai la +dévotion des plaies, et le plus beau rite de cette dévotion est le +geste qui voile.</p></div> + +<p>Toute «cette meditation sur une âme très belle» est écrite avec ce tact +délicat et cette tendre sympathie. Ainsi, après avoir admiré ces +émouvantes pages, le lecteur peut aborder dans un état d’esprit convenable +les essais parfois déconcertants qui sont réunis sous le titre +significatif d’<i>Intentions</i>. C’est dans cette belle édition qu’il faut les +lire. On sait avec quel souci d’artiste M. Carrington établit ses volumes; +il n’y laisse pas de ces incroyables coquilles, de ces épais mastics qui +ressemblent si fort à des contre-sens, et, sachant quel public intelligent +et éclairé voudrait ce livre, il n’a pas eu l’idée saugrenue d’abîmer ses +pages par d’inutiles notes assurant le lecteur par exemple que Dante a +écrit la Divine Comédie, que Shelley fut un grand poète, que Keats mourut +poitrinaire, que George Eliot était femme de lettres et Lancret peintre. +Un portrait de l’auteur est reproduit en tête de cette excellente édition.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Henry-D. Davray.</span></p> + +<p><i>(Extrait du “Mercure de France,” 15 septembre 1905).</i></p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name='f_1' id='f_1' href='#fna_1'>[1]</a> Hugues Rebell.</p> + +<p><a name='f_2' id='f_2' href='#fna_2'>[2]</a> Hugues Rebell.</p> + +<p><a name='f_3' id='f_3' href='#fna_3'>[3]</a> Sebastian Melmoth (Oscar Wilde).</p> + +<p><a name='f_4' id='f_4' href='#fna_4'>[4]</a> Hugues Rebell.</p> + +<p><a name='f_5' id='f_5' href='#fna_5'>[5]</a> <i>De Profundis.</i></p> + +<p><a name='f_6' id='f_6' href='#fna_6'>[6]</a> Hugues Rebell.</p> + +<p><a name='f_7' id='f_7' href='#fna_7'>[7]</a> <i>Studies in Prose & Verse</i>, by Arthur Symons. (Lond. 1905).</p> + +<p><a name='f_8' id='f_8' href='#fna_8'>[8]</a> Sebastian Melmoth.</p> + +<p><a name='f_9' id='f_9' href='#fna_9'>[9]</a> <i>Intentions.</i></p> + +<p><a name='f_10' id='f_10' href='#fna_10'>[10]</a> Hugues Rebell.</p> + +<p><a name='f_11' id='f_11' href='#fna_11'>[11]</a> <i>Macaulay.</i></p> + +<p><a name='f_12' id='f_12' href='#fna_12'>[12]</a> De Profundis, 1905.</p> + +<p><a name='f_13' id='f_13' href='#fna_13'>[13]</a> De Profundis, 1905.</p> + +<p><a name='f_14' id='f_14' href='#fna_14'>[14]</a> Both of the articles given above appeared for the first time in the +<span class="smcap">St. James’s Gazette</span>.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> <a name="title" id="title"></a></p> +<p class="center"> +The Trial<br /> +of<br /> +Oscar Wilde<br /> +<br /> +FROM THE SHORTHAND REPORTS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Then gently scan your brither man,<br /> +Still gentler, sister woman,<br /> +Though they may gang a’ kennin’ wrang,<br /> +To step aside is human.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;"><span class="smcap">Robt. Burns.</span></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +PARIS<br /> +PRIVATELY PRINTED<br /> +<br /> +1906<br /> +</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trial of Oscar Wilde, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE *** + +***** This file should be named 38916-h.htm or 38916-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/9/1/38916/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +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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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: The Trial of Oscar Wilde + From the Shorthand Reports + +Author: Anonymous + +Release Date: February 18, 2012 [EBook #38916] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +The Trial of Oscar Wilde + + + + + Issued for Private Circulation Only and + Limited to 50 Copies on Japanese Vellum + and Five Hundred Copies on Handmade Paper + Numbered from One to Five Hundred and Fifty. + + No 184 + + + + + The Trial + of + Oscar Wilde + + FROM THE SHORTHAND REPORTS + + + Then gently scan your brither man, + Still gentler, sister woman, + Though they may gang a' kennin' wrang, + To step aside is human. + ROBT. BURNS. + + + PARIS + PRIVATELY PRINTED + + 1906 + + + + +PREFACE + + +"_It is wrong for us during the greater part of the time to handle these +questions with timidity and false shame, and to surround them with +reticence and mystery. Matters relating to sexual life ought to be studied +without the introduction of moral prepossessions or of preconceived ideas. +False shame is as hateful as frivolity. It is a matter of pressing concern +to rid ourself of the old prejudice that we "sully our pens" by touching +upon facts of this class. It is necessary at all costs to put aside our +moral, esthetic, or religious personality, to regard facts of this nature +merely as natural phenomena, with impartiality and a certain elevation of +mind._" + + + + +PREFACE + + _I blame equally as much those who take it upon themselves to praise + man, as those who make it their business to blame him, together with + others who think that he should be perpetually amused; and only those + can I approve who seek for truth with tear-filled eyes._ + + PASCAL. + + +In "_De Profundis_," that harmonious and last expression of the perfect +artist, Wilde seems, in a single page to have concentrated in guise of +supreme confession, all the pain and passion that stirred and sobbed in +his soul. + +"_This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it, +is of course no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by means of +development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember when I was at +Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round Magdalen's +narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my degree, +that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the +world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my +soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that +I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the +sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and +its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears +even, the broken words that come from lips in pain, remorse that makes one +walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, +the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses +sack-cloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall:--all these +were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to know nothing +of them, I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to +have for a season, indeed no other food at all._" + +Further on, he tells us that his dominant desire was to seek refuge in the +deepest shade of the garden, for his mouth was full of the bitterness of +the dead-sea fruit that he had tasted, adding that this tomb-like aroma +was the befitting and necessary outcome of his preceding life of error. + +We are inclined to think he deceived himself. + +The day wherein he was at last compelled to face the horror of his +tragical destiny his soul was tried beyond endurance. He strode +deliberately, as he himself assures us, towards the gloomiest nook of the +garden, inwardly trembling perhaps, but proud notwithstanding ... hoping +against hope that the sun's rays would seek him out even there ... or in +other words, that he would not cease to live that _Bios theoretikos_, +which he held to be the greatest ideal. + +"_From the high tower of Thought we can look out at the world. Calm, and +self-centred, and complete, the aesthetic critic contemplates life, and no +arrow drawn at a venture can pierce between the joints of his harness._" + +We all know what arrows struck him, arrows that he himself had sharpened, +and that Society had not forgotten to tip with poison. + +"Neither his own heedlessness nor the envious and hypocritical anger of +his enemies, nor the snobbish cruelty of social reprobation were the true +cause of his misfortunes. It was he himself who, after a time of horrible +anguish, consented to his punishment, with a sort of supercilious disdain +for the weakness of human will, and out of a certain regard and unhealthy +curiosity for the sportfulness of fate. Here was a voluptuary seeking for +torture and desiring pain after having wallowed in every sensual +pleasure.... Could such conduct have been due to aught else but sheer +madness?" + +The true debauchee has no such object. He seeks only for pleasure and +discounts beforehand the conditions that Life dictates for the same; the +conditions laid down containing no guarantee that the pleasure will be +actually grasped except only in promise and anticipation. Later, too proud +to acknowledge his cruel disappointment, he will gravely assure us that +the bitterness left in the bottom of the goblet whose wine he has quaffed, +has indeed the sweet taste that he sought after. Certain minds are +satisfied with the fantasmagoria of their intelligence, whereas the +voluptuary finds happiness only in the pleasure of realisation. In his +heart he concocts for himself a prodigious mixture of sorrow and of joy, +of suffering and of ecstacy, but the great world, wotting naught of this +secret alchemy and judging only according to the facts which lie upon the +surface, slices down to the same level, with the same stupid knife, the +strange, beautiful flower, as well as the evil weed that grew apace. + +Remy de Gourmont said of the famous author, Paul Adam, that he was "a +magnificent spectacle." Wilde may be pronounced a painful problem. He +seems to escape literary criticism in order to fall under the keen +scalping knife of the analytical moralist, by the paradoxical fact of his +apparently imperious purpose to hew out and fashion forth his life as a +work of art. + +"Save here and there, in _Intentions_ and in his poems, the _Poem of +Reading Gaol_, nothing of his soul has he thrown into his books; he seemed +to desire, one can almost postulate as a certainty, the stupendous tragedy +that blasted his life. From the abyss where his flesh groaned in misery, +his conscience hovered above him contemplating his woeful state whilst he +thus became the spectator of his own death-throes."[1] + +That is the reason why he stirs us so deeply. + +Those who might be tempted to search in his work for an echo however +feeble, of a new message to mankind, will be grievously disappointed. The +technical cleverness of Wilde is undeniable, but the magnificent dress in +which he has clothed it appears to us to have been borrowed. He has +brought us neither remedy nor poison; he leads us nowhere, but at the same +time we are conscious that he has been everywhere. No companion of ours is +he, but all the companions we hold dear he has known. True he sat at the +feet of the wise men of Greece in the Gardens of Academus, but the +eurythmy of their gests fascinated him more than the soberness of their +doctrines. Dante he followed in all his subterranean travels and +peregrinations, but all that he has to relate to us after his frightful +journeyings is merely an ecstatic description of the highly-wrought +scenery that he had witnessed. + +"I packed all my genius, said he, into my life, I have put only my talent +into my works." Unfaithful to the principle which he learnedly deduced in +_Intentions_, viz: that the undivided soul of a writer should incorporate +itself in his work, even as Shakespeare pushing aside the "_impulses that +stirred so strongly within him that he had, as it were perforce, to suffer +them to realize their energy, not on the lower plane of actual life, where +they would have been trammelled and constrained and so made imperfect, but +on that of the imaginative plane of art_," ... he came to confound the +intensity of feeling with the calmness of beauty. Possessed of a mind of +rare culture, he nevertheless only evoked, when he touched Art, harmonious +vibrations perhaps, but vibrations which others, after all said and done, +had already created before him. He succeeded in producing nothing more +than a splendid and incomparable echo. The most that can be said is that +the music he had in his soul he kept there, living all the time a crowded, +ostentatious life, and distinguishing himself as a superlative +conversationalist. Be this as it may, posterity cannot judge us according +to those possibilities of our nature which were never developed. However +numerous may be the testimonies in our favour, she cannot pronounce +excepting on the works, or at least, the materials left by the workman. It +is this which renders so precarious the actor's fleeting glory, as it +likewise dissipates the golden halo that hovers over the brilliant Society +_causeur_. Nothing remains of Mallarme excepting a few cunningly wrought +verses, inferior to the clearer and more profound poems of his great +master, Baudelaire. Of Wilde nothing will remain beyond his written works +which are vastly inferior to his brilliant epigrammatic conversation. + +In our days, the master of repartee and the after-dinner speaker is +fore-doomed to forgetfulness, for he always stands alone, and to gain +applause has to talk down to and flatter lower-class audiences. No writer +of blood-curdling melodramas, no weaver of newspaper novels is obliged to +lower his talent so much as the professional wit. If the genius of +Mallarme was obscured by the flatterers that surrounded him, how much more +was Wilde's talent overclouded by the would-be witty, shoddy-elegant, and +cheaply-poetical society hangers-on, who covered him with incense? One of +his devoted literary courtezans, who has written a life of Wilde, which +is nothing more than a rhapsodidal panegyric of his intimacy with the +poet, tells us that the first attempts of the sparkling conversationalist +were not at all successful in Paris drawing-rooms. In the house of Victor +Hugo seeing he had to let the veteran sleep out his nap whilst others +among the guests slumbered also, he made up his mind to astonish them. He +succeeded, but at what a cost! Although he was a verse writer, most +sincerely devoted to poetry and art, and one of the most emotional and +sensitive and tender-hearted amongst modern wielders of the pen he +succeeded only in gaining a reputation for artificiality. + +We all know his studied paradoxes, his five or six continually repeated +tales, but we are tempted to forget the charming dreamer who was full of +tenderness for everything in nature. + +"It is true that Mallarme has not written much, but all he has done is +valuable. Some of his verses are most beautiful whilst Wilde seemed never +to finish anything. The works of the English aesthete are very +interesting, because they characterize his epoch; his pages are useful +from a documentary point of view, but are not extraordinary from a +literary standpoint. In the _Duchess of Padua_, he imitates Hugo and +Sardou; the _Picture of Dorian Grey_ was inspired by Huysmans; +_Intentions_ is a _vade-mecum_ of symbolism, and all the ideas contained +therein are to be found in Mallarme and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. As for +Wilde's poetry, it closely follows the lines laid down by Swinburne. His +most original composition is _Poems in Prose_. They give a correct idea of +his home-chat, but not when he was at his best; that no doubt, is because +the art of talking must always be inferior to any form of literary +composition. Thoughts properly set forth in print after due correction +must always be more charming than a finely sketched idea hurriedly +enunciated when conversing with a few disciples. In ordinary table-talk we +meet nothing more than ghosts of new-born ideas fore-doomed to perish. The +jokes of a wit seldom survive the speaker. When we quote the epigrams of +Wilde, it is as if we were exhibiting in a glass case, a collection of +beautiful butterflies, whose wings have lost the brilliancy of their once +gaudy colours. Lively talk pleases, because of the man who utters it, and +we are impressed also by the gestures which accompany his frothy +discourse. What remains of the sprightly quips and anecdotes of such +celebrated _hommes d'esprit_, as Scholl, Becque, Barbey d'Aurevilly! Some +stories of the XVIIIth. century have been transmitted to us by Chamfort, +but only because he carefully remodelled them by the aid of his clever +pen."[2] + +These opinions of Rebell questionable though they may be, show us plainly +something of the charm and the weakness of Wilde. + +A perfect artist desiring to leave his mark on the temple-columns of Fame +must not live among his fellow men ambitious to taste the bitterness and +the sweetness alike of every caress of existence, but submit himself +pitilessly to the thraldom of the writing desk. Some authors may produce +masterpieces amidst the busy throng; but there are others who lose all +power of creation unless they shut themselves up for a time and live +severely by rote. When Wilde was dragging out a wretched life in the +sordid room of a cheap, furnished hotel, where he eventually died, did he +ever remember while reading Balzac by the flickering light of his one +candle that the great master of French literature often sought solitude +and wrestled for eighteen hours at a stretch with the demon of severe +toil? Did he ever repeat the doleful wail of the Author of _La Comedie +Humaine_ who was sometimes heard to exclaim in sad tones: "_I ought not +to have done that.... I ought to have put black on white, black on +white...._" + +Few experiments are really necessary for the literary creator who seeks to +analyse the stuff of which Life is composed in order to dissolve for us +all its elements and demonstrate its ever-present underlying essence. The +romance writer must stand away from the crowd, if only for a time, and +reflect deeply upon what he has seen and heard. The power of thought, to +be free and fruitful, cannot flourish without the strength of ascetism. We +must yield to that law which decrees that action may not be the +twin-sister of dreams. Those who live a life of pleasure can only give us +colourless falsehoods when they try to depict sincerity of feeling. The +confessions of sensualists resemble volcanic ashes. + +Wilde himself gives us the key to his errors and his weakness: + +"_Human life is the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there is +nothing else of any value. It is true that as one watches life in its +curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one cannot wear over one's face a +mask of glass nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and +making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshappen +dreams. There are poisons so subtle that to know their properties one has +to sicken of them. There are maladies so strange that one has to pass +through them if one seeks to understand their nature. And yet what a great +reward one receives! How wonderful the whole world becomes to one! To note +the curious, hard logic of passion and the emotional, coloured life of the +intellect--to observe where they meet, and where they separate, at what +point they are in unison and at what point they are in discord--there is a +delight in that! What matter what the cost is? One can never pay too high +a price for any sensation._"[3] + +The brain becomes dulled at this sport, which it would be illusory to call +a study. He who uses his intellect to serve only his sensuality can +produce nothing elaborate but what is artificial. Such is the dilemma of +Wilde, whose collections of writings is like a painted stage-scene, mere +garish canvas, behind which there is never anything substantial. + +"When I first saw Wilde, he had not yet been seared by the brand of +general reprobation. Often I changed my opinion of him, but at first I +felt the enthusiasm which young literary aspirants always feel for those +who have made their mark; then the law-suit took place, followed by the +dramatic thunderclap of a criminal prosecution; and my soul revolted as +if some great iniquity had been consummated. Later on, it seemed to me +that the man of fashion had swallowed up the literary god, his baggage +seemed light, and his brilliant butterfly-life had perhaps been of more +importance to him than the small pile of volumes bearing his name. + +"To-day, I seem clearly to understand what sort of a man he +was--extraordinary beyond a doubt; but never has artificial sentiment been +so cunningly mingled with seemingly natural simplicity and pulsating +pleasure in one and the same man."[4] + +"_I must say to myself that I ruined myself and that nobody great or small +can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am +trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This +pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was +what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible +still._ + +_I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my +age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and +had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position +in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually +discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long +after both the man and his age have passed away. With me it was different. +I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, +but his relations were the passion of his age and its weariness of +passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital +issue, of larger scope._ + +_The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into +long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a_ +flaneur, _a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller +natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, +and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the +heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new +sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity +became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, +or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took +pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little +action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore +what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on +the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain +of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I +ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute +humility._"[5] + +This confession of irreparable defeat while being exceedingly dolorous, is +unfortunately, rendered still further painful by other pages which +contradict it, and almost tempt us to doubt its sincerity, in spite of the +fact that Wilde was always sincere for those who knew how to read between +the lines and enter into his spirit. + +"There is no doubt that he was truly a most extraordinary man, endowed +with striking originality, but a man who at the same time took more than +uncommon care to hide his gifts under a cloak bought in some conventional +bazaar which made a point of keeping abreast with the fashions of the +day."[6] + +What brought about his downfall was the mad idea that possessed him of the +possibility of employing in the service of noble aspirations all, without +exception, all the passions that moved and agitated his human soul. +Everyone of us is, no doubt, peopled at times with mysterious spirits, +ephemeral apparitions, which like the wild beasts that Christ long ago +cast out of the Gadarene swine, tear themselves to pieces in internecine +warfare. It is with such soldiers as these, who very seldom obey the +superior orders of the higher intellect, or desert and rebel against us at +the opportune moment, that we are called upon to withstand the onslaught +of a thousand enemies. Wilde made the grand mistake of trying to +understand them all. He believed that they were capable of adapting +themselves to that powerful instinct which animated him, and which +directed him, wherever he wandered or wherever he went, towards the spirit +of Beauty. This error lasted long enough perhaps to convince him of the +power that was born in him, but unfortunately, the revelation of his error +came too late. + +My object in this preface is not to write the life of Wilde. + +I have only to do with the Writer, for the Man is yet too much alive and +his wounds have scarcely ceased bleeding! In the presence of still living +sorrow, crimson-tinged, respect commands us to stand bareheaded; before +the scarred face of woe the voice is dumb; we should, above all, endeavour +rather to ignore the accidents that thrust themselves into a life and try +to discover the great, calm soul, beautiful in its melancholy, which +though pained and suffering, has never ceased to be nobly inspired. To +prove that this was true in the case of Wilde, we may have recourse to +some of those who knew him well and who form a great "cloud of witnesses," +testifying to the veracity of the things we have laid down. + +Mr. Arthur Symons, a keen and large-minded critic, a friend of Wilde's, +and an elegant and forcible writer to boot, in his recent volume: +"_Studies in Prose and Verse_," characterizes Wilde as a "poet of +attitudes," and we cannot do better than quote a few lines from the fine +article which he consecrated to our author: + +"_When the "Ballad of Reading Gaol" was published, he said, it seemed to +some people that such a return to, or so startling a first acquaintance +with, real things, was precisely what was most required to bring into +relation, both with life and art an extraordinary talent so little in +relation with matters of common experience, so fantastically alone in a +region of intellectual abstractions. In this poem, where a style formed on +other lines seems startled at finding itself used for such new purposes, +we see a great spectacular intellect, to which, at last, pity and terror +have come in their own person, and no longer as puppets in a play. In its +sight, human life has always been something acted on the stage; a comedy +in which it is the wise man's part to sit aside and laugh, but in which he +may also disdainfully take part, as in a carnival, under any mask. The +unbiassed, scornful intellect, to which humanity has never been a burden, +comes now to be unable to sit aside and laugh, and it has worn and looked +behind so many masks that there is nothing left desirable in illusion. +Having seen, as the artist sees, further than morality, but with so +partial an eyesight as to have overlooked it on the way, it has come at +length to discover morality in the only way left possible, for itself. +And, like most of those who, having "thought themselves weary," have made +the adventure of putting thought into action, it has had to discover it +sorrowfully, at its own incalculable expense. And now, having become so +newly acquainted with what is pitiful, and what seems most unjust, in the +arrangement of human affairs, it has gone, not unnaturally, to an extreme, +and taken, on the one hand, humanitarianism, on the other realism, at more +than their just valuation, in matters of art. It is that odd instinct of +the intellect, the necessity of carrying things to their furthest point of +development, to be more logical than either life or art, two very wayward +and illogical things, in which conclusions do not always follow from +premises._ + +_His intellect was dramatic, and the whole man was not so much a +personality as an attitude...._ + +_And it was precisely in his attitudes that he was most sincere. They +represented his intentions; they stood for the better, unrealised part of +himself. Thus his attitude, towards life and towards art, was untouched by +his conduct; his perfectly just and essentially dignified assertion of the +artist's place in the world of thought and the place of beauty in the +material world being in nowise invalidated by his own failure to create +pure beauty or to become a quite honest artist. A talent so vividly at +work as to be almost genius was incessantly urging him into action, mental +action._ + +_Realising as he did, that it is possible to be very watchfully cognisant +of that "quality of our moments as they pass," and so shape them after +one's own ideal much more continuously and consciously than most people +have ever thought of trying to do, he made for himself many souls, souls +of intricate pattern and elaborate colour, webbed into infinite tiny +cells, each the home of a strange perfume, perhaps a poison. "Every soul +had its own secret, and was secluded from the soul which had gone before +it or was to come after it. And this showman of souls was not always aware +that he was juggling with real things, for to him they were no more than +the coloured glass balls which the juggler keeps in the air, catching them +one after another. For the most part the souls were content to be +playthings; now and again they took a malicious revenge, and became so +real that even the juggler was aware of it. But when they became too real +he had to go on throwing them into the air and catching them, even though +the skill of the game had lost its interest for him. But as he never lost +his self-possession, his audience, the world, did not see the +difference._"[7] + +Thus not wishing to live for himself, Wilde was surprised into living +mainly for others, and his ever-present desire to astonish was one of the +prime causes that led to his overthrow. Yet, in spite of this, what riches +of the mind, one easily divines him to possess, if for a moment we peer +beyond the mobile curtain of his paradoxes. Those who listened to him, +this modern St. Chrysostom, on whose lips there was ever an ambiguous +smile, could not fail to see that he spoke to himself, was occupied in +translating that which was passing in his mind, trying in a sense, to +ravish his auditors and plunge them even into greater, though only +ephemeral, ravishment, whilst ushering them into an absolutely unreal and +immaterial kingdom of capricious fantasy, and they will remember that he +was sometimes astonishingly profound and grave, and always charming, +paradoxical, and eloquent. His mind constantly dwelt upon the questions of +Art and Aesthetics. In _Intentions_ he laid down serious problems, which +in themselves bore every appearance of contradiction, and which any +attempt to resolve would, at the outset, appear puerile and ambitious. + +For instance:--Is lying a fundamental principle of Art, that is to say, of +every art? + +Is it possible for there to be perfect concordance between a finely +ordered and pure life, and the worship of Beauty; or, are we to consider +such a consummation as utterly impossible and chimerical? + +Must there be a permanent and necessary divorce between Ethics and +Aesthetics? + +Ought we, beneath the flowery mask of a borrowed smile, allow ourselves to +be carried away by all the waves of instinct? + +The art of Criticism, is it superior to Art? The Interpreter can he be +superior to the creator? Must we modify the profound axiom, "to understand +is to equal," not by reducing it to that other axiom, more profound +perhaps, "to understand is to achieve," but by modifying it with that, +which, at the first glance looks at least passingly strange "to understand +is to surpass?" + +Such are the questions which Wilde postulated in _Intentions_ and worked +out with great audacity, but with no higher object than to win admiration, +and all this with the indifferent suppleness of a conjuror of words. + +_Intentions_ is a study of artificial genius, culture, and instinct, and, +for this reason, it forms a most curious production. In itself it can +hardly be termed a magistral work, inasmuch as all the theories enunciated +in it are, at least, twenty years old, and appear to us to-day quite worn +out and decrepit. As much may be said, also, for the theories put forward +by our young, contemporaneous artists who undertake to discuss all things +in Heaven and Earth, and whose vapourings on Life, Nature, Social Art and +other things--especially other things--are no more guaranteed against +mortality than the doctrines above specified. Let them remember, in +reading Wilde's work, that their Aesthetical doctrines will soon become as +antiquated, and that it is no bid for lasting fame to write flashy novels, +pretty verses, high-flown or realistic dramas, pessimistic or optimistic +plays, imbued with Schopenhaurian and Nitzschien principles, since the +crying need of the time is for sincere work. All the doctrines ever +invented are mere tittle-tattle, only fit to amuse brainless ladies +wanting in beauty, or minds stricken with positive sterility. + +It is not inexact that in _Intentions_ one meets with a profound truth +now and again, but the dressing of it is so paradoxical that we run a risk +of misinterpreting all that may animate it of genuine fitness and +sincerity. + +Wilde may truly be denominated the last representative of that English art +of the XIXth. century, which beginning with Shelley, continuing with the +Pre-Raphaelites and culminating with the American painter, Whistler, +endeavours purposely to set forth an ideal and elegant expression of the +world. + +The mistake of these men lies in the belief that Art was made for Life; +whereas it is, as a matter of fact, quite the contrary. Life has no other +value, except as subject-matter, for poet and painter. These are excentric +theories, certainly, but then, what on earth, does it matter about +theories? Do not they serve the great artist to make his genius more +puissant, and enable him to concentrate all his forces in the same +direction by uniting instead of scattering them? With, or in spite of his +theories, Shelley wrote his poems and Whistler painted his pictures; if +their aesthetic basis was bad, one, at least, cannot pretend that it was +dangerous, since it enabled them to accomplish their masterpieces. Wilde, +unfortunately, was an aesthete before he was a poet, and produced his works +somewhat in the spirit of bravado. He had been told that he could not +create aught of good: the reply, triumphant and crushing was, the _Picture +of Dorian Grey_. He is a literary problem; and in considering him, we are +struck with the unwarranted corruption, by his acquaintances, of a fine +artistic sensibility. + +The fashionable drawing-rooms of the West-End brought about his downfall, +or rather, and it amounts to the same thing: his frank and undisguised +desire to please and to dazzle them proved his undoing. Possibly the same +misfortune would have overtaken Merimee, had it not been for his lofty and +vigorous intelligence; as it was, he lost more than once, most precious +time in composing "_Chambres bleues_," when he was undoubtedly capable of +producing another "_Colomba_," and other variations of "_Vases +etrusques_." + +With all this, let us be thoroughly just; _Intentions_ is far from +containing anything but mere paradoxes. Those that we find there are at +any rate of very diverse kinds. Some are pure verbal amusements, and may +be thrust aside after the moment's attention that they snatched from our +surprise. Others belong to a nobler family of ideas and awaken in us the +lasting and fecund astonishment of the paradox which is born sound and +healthy, because it concerns a new truth. Into the mental landscape, +these paradoxes introduce that sudden change of perspective, which forces +the mind to rise or to descend, and thus causes us to discover other +horizons. What a grievous error would it be on our part not to feel +something of that immense and exhaustive love of beauty which haunted the +soul of Wilde until the bitter end? However artificial his work may appear +at the first glance, there is still sufficient left of the man which was +incomparable. We instinctively feel that he belonged to the chosen race of +those upon whom the "spirit of the hour" had laid his magic wand, and who +give forth at the cunning touch of the Magician some of the finest notes +of which our stunted human nature is capable. Men thus endowed, enjoy the +rare privilege of being unable to proffer a single word, without our +perceiving however confusedly, the splendid harmony of an almost universal +accompaniment of ideas. The choir, their eyes fixed upon the eyes of the +master-musician, follows his inspired gestures with jealous care, and +seeks to interpret his every nod and movement. + +None but an artist could have written the admirable pages on Shakespeare, +Greek Art, and other elevated themes that are to be found in the works of +Oscar Wilde. + +More than an artist was he, who noted down the suggestive thought: that +the humility of the matter of a work of art is an element of culture. If +therefore, we hear him exclaim that "thought is a sickness," we must bear +in mind that this is simply an analysis of the phrase: "_We live in a +period whose reading is too vast to allow it to become wise, and which +thinks too much to be beautiful._" + +Our eyes can no longer penetrate the esoteric meaning of the statues of +the olden times, beautiful with glorified animality, and which have alas, +become for us little more than the tongue-tied offspring of the inspiring +god Pan, dead beyond all hope of rebirth. Our brains have become stupified +through the heaviness of the flesh, and this, perhaps, because we have +treated the flesh as a slave. + +"_The worship of the senses, wrote Wilde, has often, and with much +justice, been decried; men feeling a natural instinct of terror about +passions and sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they +are conscious of sharing with the less highly-organised forms of +existence. But it is probable the true nature of the senses has never been +understood, and that they have remained savage and animal merely because +the world has sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by +pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of +which a fine instinct for beauty will be the dominant characteristic._"[8] + +In these lines, we may perhaps find the key of a certain metamorphosis in +the poet's life, before Circe, that terrible sorceress, had passed his +way. + + "_Who knows not Circe, + The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup + Whoever tasted lost his upright shape, + And downward fell into a grovelling swine?_" + (_Milton: Comus, 50-53._) + +The infant King of Rome, we are told, looking out from a window of the +Louvre one day, at the muddy street where young children were +playing,--sad in the midst of a perfumed and divinely flattering +court,--cried out: "I too, would like to roll myself in that beautiful +mud." We are inclined to think from a sentimental outlook, that Wilde also +had the same morbid desire; but, he was worth better things; and there +were times in his life when serene aspirations moved his heart before he +sat down to the festive board of Sin. + +He had a pronounced tendency towards the _discipulat_; used to question +youths about their studies and their mind, showing as much interest in +them as a spiritual confessor, inebriating himself with their enthusiasm, +and surrounding himself more and more with a medley of different friends. +A vigorous pagan, ardent, intoxicated with souvenirs of Antiquity, +heart-sick of his worldly successes, he dreamed perhaps of living over +again: + + _Ces heroeiques jours ou les jeunes pensees + Allaient chercher leur miel aux levres d'un Platon._ + +But this _artificiel de l'art_ was, although he wotted it not, a man who +rioted in the good things of life. He sought to inculcate in himself a +quiet spirit which believes itself invulnerable. + +"_And when we reach the true culture that is our aim, we attain to that +perfection of which the saints have dreamed, the perfection of those to +whom sin is impossible, not because they make the renunciations of the +ascetic, but because they can do everything they wish without hurt to the +soul, and can wish for nothing that can do the soul harm, the soul being +an entity so divine that it is able to transform into elements of a richer +experience, or a finer susceptibility, or a newer mode of thoughts, acts +or passions that with the common would be commonplace, or with the +uneducated ignoble, or with the shameful vile._"[9] + +This passage shows us a state of things very far removed from the old +dream of antiquity. + +He forgot, alas! the puritanism and sublime discourses of Diotime, which +have been so finely pictured for us by Plato, to wallow in the orgies of +the Island of Capria. + +Before that Criminal Court, where he vainly struggled so as "not to appear +naked before men," we hear him proclaim what he had himself desired and +perhaps attained. + +What interpretation, asked the judge, can you give us of the verse: + + _I am the Love which dares not tell its name_ + +"The Love referred to," replied Wilde, "is that which exists between a man +of mature years and a young man; the love of David and of Jonathan. It is +the same love that Plato made the basis of his philosophy; it is that love +which is sung in the Sonnets of Shakespeare and of Michael-Angelo; it is a +profound spiritual affection, as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, +pure and noble; it is intellectual, the love of a man possessing full +experience of life, and of a young man full of all the joy and all the +hope of the future." + +There in that struggle in the midst of thick darkness, this must have +been the cry of his tormented soul, a breath of pure air as he passed, a +perfumed memory ... then there came a few arrow flights badly winged which +only wounded his own heart. + +He defended himself in an indifferent way according to some people, +although it must be admitted that he gave the answers that were necessary +and becoming, and, in some cases, compelled his judges, who were no better +than the mouth-pieces of the crowd, to confess the hatred that the worship +of beauty had inspired. + +"However strange may have been his attitude, that attitude could not have +been indifferent to anyone. Those who have been fortunate enough to laugh +at the portrait that Rene Boylesve has drawn of the aesthete in his fine +novel "Le Parfum des Iles Borromees," would find it difficult to make a +mock of the man who accepted with superb disinterestedness, the torture +that he knew beforehand the judges would inevitably inflict upon him. + +Although he may not have been a great poet, although the pretext of his +equivocal mode of living was taken to condemn him, we cannot lose sight of +the art and of the literary craftsman that were condemned at the same time +with him."[10] + +_We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its +periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family +quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for +a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes +outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be +violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that +the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly +some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose +offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory +sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a +profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, +and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose +vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is +supposed, sufficiently chastised._[11] + +This bitter denunciation of English mock-modesty by the brilliant Essayist +rests upon thoroughly justifiable grounds. Once again in the dolorous +history of humanity, the grotesque farce was enacted of chasing forth the +scapegoat into the wilderness to bear away the sins of the people. But, in +this instance, the unhappy creature was not only laden with the sins of +the tribe; a heavier burden still had been added to all the others: the +fearful burden of the mad, unreasoned hatred of the sinners. Indeed he, +whose share in the general load of sin was the greatest, sought to add +more hatred than all the others to the great fardel under which the victim +staggered, and believing himself so much the more innocent that the +abjection of the unfortunate wretch was complete, would have been glad had +it been in his power to help even the public hangman in the execution of +his nefarious task. We have observed that through some diabolical strain +in human nature, the evil joy which creates scandal and gives rise to a +man's downfall, increases in intensity if the victim happens to be a man +of superior rank and talent. + + _On voit briller au fond des prunelles haineuses, + L'orgueil mysterieux de souiller la Beaute._ + +How great must have been the delighted intoxication of numberless weak +minds when they were impelled, in the midst of a silence that braver and +clearer spirits dared not break, to screech out vociferations against Art +and Thought, denouncing these as the accomplices of the momentary +aberrations of him who erstwhile worshipped at their shrine. Here in +France at least, men knew better how to restrain themselves, and there +were even a few courageous wielders of talented pens who did not hesitate +to use their abilities in favour of their Anglo-Saxon colleague. Hugues +Rebell published in the _Mercure de France_ that _Defense d'Oscar Wilde_, +the calm and tempered logic of which is still fresh to many minds. A +number of writers and artists even held a meeting of protestation; but, of +course, all this had not the slightest effect on the judicial position of +Wilde. It was generally felt that the ferocious outcry raised against the +unhappy man "who had been found out" was because that man was a poet, and +not so much because he had gone counter to the manners of his time. +Amongst all the mingled shouting and laughter, the arguments for and the +arguments against, the voice of one man was heard stentorian and clear +above all the rest, that voice belonged to Octave Mirbeau, a puissant +master of the French tongue, and a brilliant writer and dramatist. The +following lines of suppressed anger and large-minded charity emanated from +his pen: + +"_A great deal has been heard about the paradoxes of Oscar Wilde upon Art, +Beauty, Conscience and Life! Paradoxes they were, it is true, and we know +that some laid themselves open to the charge of exaggeration, and vaulted +over the threshold of the Forbidden. But after all, what is a paradox if +not, for the most part of the time, the exaltation of an idea in a +striking and superior form? As soon as an idea overleaps the low-level of +ordinary popular understanding, having ceased to drag behind it the +ignoble stumps gathered in the swamps of middle-class morality, and seeks +with strong, steadfast wing, to attain the lofty heights of Philosophy, +Literature or Art, we at once stigmatize it as a paradox, because, unable +ourselves to follow it into those regions which are inaccessible to us, +through the weakness of our organs, and we make haste to scotch it and put +it under ban by flinging after it curse-laden cries of blame and +contempt._ + +_And yet, strange as it may seem, progress cannot be made save by way of +paradox, whilst much vaunted common sense--the prized virtue of the +imbecile--perpetuates the humdrum routine of daily life. The truth is, we +refuse to allow anyone to come and outrage our intellectual sluggishness, +or our morality, ready-made like second-hand clothes in a dealer's shop, +or the stupid security of our sheepish preconceptions._ + +_Looked at squarely, that was the veritable crime in the minds of those +who sat in judgment on Oscar Wilde._ + +_They could not forgive him for being a thinker, and a man of superior +intellect--and for that self-same reason eminently dangerous to other men. +Wilde is young and has a future before him, and he has proved by the +strong and charming works which he has already given us that he can still +do much more in the cause of Beauty and Art. Must we not then admit that +it is an abominable thing to risk the killing of something far above all +laws, and all morality: the spirit of beauty, for the sake of repressing +acts which are not really punishable_ per se. + +_For laws change and morality becomes transformed with the transformations +of time, with the changeing of latitude and longitude, but beauty remains +immaculate, and sheds her light far over the centuries that she alone can +rescue from obscurity._" + +With these magnificent words of one of the great masters of French prose, +we would gladly terminate the present study; but it remains for us to cite +the following from the pen of our lately deceased friend, Hugues Rebell, +who possessed not only acumen and erudition, but employed a brilliant +style and ready wit in the expression of his thoughts: + +"Will a day ever come, wrote he, when the deeds of men will be no more +judged in the name of religion and morality, but from the point of view of +their social importance? When the misdemeanours of a man of wit and of +genius, or a clever, elegant man of fashion, shall no longer be judged by +the same law as that which condemns a stolid navvy or a dockyard hand? Far +from believing in our much belauded progress, I am inclined alas, to think +that we are really far behind our forefathers in tolerance, and above all +in the ideas that govern our idea of social equality. The downfall of the +sentiment of hierarchy seriously compromises the existence of some of the +best men amongst us. It is not crime merely which is tracked and hounded +down, but all that strays aside for a moment from every-day habits and +customs. So-and-so, because he is not like other people inspires aversion, +even horror on the part of those who take off their hats most respectfully +to the successful swindler; and whilst the Police complacently allow the +perpetration in our great cities of robberies and murders, they make a +raid on the unfortunate bookseller who happens to have stowed away +carefully in his back-shop, a few illustrations where the high deeds and +gestures of Venus are too faithfully reproduced. These paltry persecutions +would only serve to bring a smile to our lips were it not that everyone is +more or less exposed to their arbitrary measures. Men are far less free +to-day than they formerly were, because they are too much dominated by a +large number of ignorant and groundless prejudices. Ferocious gaolers +fetter and imprison their minds for their greater overthrow; no longer do +they believe in God, whilst giving implicit faith to vain Science which, +making small account of the great diversity of character and temperament +amongst human beings, holds up for unique example, a healthy and virtuous +individual who never had any real existence except in the imagination of +fools; and whilst no longer following any of the old religions, they +submit themselves with equanimity to the condemnation of so-called Human +Justice, which more often than not is radically venal, and impresses them +far more than did in olden times, the ex-communicating _bulls_ of Popes +who had usurped the authority of God." + +As for the sentence of hard labour passed upon Wilde, a description would +fail to convey to the inexperienced reader a full idea of its barbarous +severity. Sir Edward Clarke, the counsel for the defense, gave +substantially the following reply to the representative of a Paris +newspaper: + +"My opinion is that Oscar Wilde will work out his sentence. He has +received the heaviest punishment that it was possible to inflict upon him. +You cannot possibly form any notion of the extreme severity of "hard +labour" which is implacable in its _regime_ of absorbing and exigent +regularity. + +"Oscar Wilde, who wore his hair long like the esthete he was, was obliged +to undergo the indignity of having it cut close, and wearing the +sack-cloth suit bearing the broad-arrow mark of the convict. Thrust into a +small narrow cell with only a bed, or rather a wooden plank in guise of a +bed, for all his furniture,--a bed without a matress, and with a bolster +made of wood, this talented man was made to pass the long weary months of +his martyrdom. + +"The "labour" given him to do was absolutely ridiculous for a man of his +bent; first of all for a certain number of hours, he had to sit on a stool +in his cell and disentangle and reduce to small quantities ship-rope of +enormous size used for docking ocean liners, the only instruments allowed +him to effect the work being a nail and his own fingers. The result of +this painful and atrocious penitence was to tear and disfigure his hands +beyond all hope. + +"After that he was conducted into a court where he had to displace a +certain number of cannon-balls, carrying them from one place to another +and arranging them in symmetrical piles. No sooner was this edifying +labour terminated, than he had himself to undo it all and carry back the +cannon-balls one by one to the place from whence he had first taken them. + +"Then finally, he was made to work the tread-mill which is a harder task +than those even that we have endeavoured faintly to describe. Imagine if +you can, an enormous wheel in the interior of which exist cunningly +arranged winding steps. Wilde, mounting on one of the steps, would +immediately set the wheel in motion by the movement of his feet; then the +steps follow each other under the feet in rapid and regular evolution, +thus forcing the legs to a precipitous action which becomes laborious, +enervating, and even maddening after a few minutes. But this enervating +fatigue and suffering the convict is obliged to overcome, whilst +continuing to move his legs for all they are worth, if he would escape +being knocked down, caught up and thrown over, by the revolving movement +of the wheel. This fantastical exercise lasts a quarter of an hour, and +the wretch obliged to indulge in it, is allowed five minutes rest before +the silly game recommences. + +"The convict is always kept apart and not allowed to speak even to his +gaoler except at certain moments. All correspondence and reading is +forbidden, save for the Bible and Prayer book placed at the head of the +wooden plank, which serves him for a bed; and relatives are not admitted +to see him excepting at the end of the year. + +"His food consists of meat and black bread, and of course only water is +allowed. The meal-times take place at fixed hours, for naturally he has to +follow a regular _regime_, in order to accomplish the hard labours that +are incumbent upon him. + +"Many of the convicts have been known to say, on coming out of prison, +that they would have far more preferred to pass ten years in penal +servitude than work out two years of hard labour. The moral suffering men +like Oscar Wilde are forced to undergo is probably superior even to their +physical distress, and I can only repeat that this labour is the severest +which the laws of England impose." + + * * * * * + +Wilde endured this martyrdom to the bitter end, the only favour allowed +him being permission, towards the end of the time, to read a few books and +to write. He read Dante in his entirety, dwelling longer over the poet's +description of Hell than anything else, because here he recognized himself +"at home." + +Before the doors of the gaol had been bolted on him, he wrote with a pen +that had been dipped in colourless ink, letters of tears, sobs and pains, +which were issued to the world only after the unhappy man had winged his +flight for another planet. Those letters bear every mark of the deepest +sincerity. They are not so much literature as the wail of a broken heart, +which had attached itself to the only human affection he believed was +still faithful to him. It is impossible to treat lightly the passionate +anguish which refrains from expressing itself with the same intensity as +the sorrows it had suffered, stricken with infinite sadness at the utter +shipwreck of all hope and the cowardice of the human nature that had +brought him to such low estate. + +That he should have conjured up the happy times he had seen decked out in +all the charming graces of youth, and which smiled back his visage from +the limpid mirror of his marvellously artistic intelligence, is only +perfectly natural; and this evocation of happier times took on a new and +horribly strange beauty, just as the feeblest ray of light stealing +through prison walls gains in puissance from the sheer opacity of +enveloping darkness. + +I will not stop here to enquire whether he found later the consolation he +so much desired, a haven of peace in the friendship of the aristocratic +adolescent, who had unwittingly caused him to become cast-a-way. It is +highly probable that the bitter words which Andre Gide heard him utter, +referred to that unfortunate intimacy: "No, he does not understand me; he +can no longer understand me. I repeat to him in each letter; we can no +more follow together the same path; you have yours, and it is certainly +beautiful; and I have mine. His path is the path of Alcibiade, whilst mine +henceforth must be that of St. Francis of Assisi." + +His last most important work in prose: _De Profundis_, which reveals him +to us under an entirely different aspect, although, practically always the +same man, shows that he is still engrossed with the perpetual love of +attitudinizing, dreaming perhaps, that in spite of his sorrow and +repentance, he will be able to take up again and sing, although in an +humbler tone, the pagan hymn that had been strangled in his throat. In +this connection, we cannot help thinking of the gesture of the great +Talma, who whilst he lay a-dying, although he knew it not, took the +pendant skin of his thin neck, between his fingers, and said to those who +stood around: "Here is something which would suit finely to make up a +visage for an old Tiberius." + +It seems to us that the chief characteristic of Wilde's book is not so +much its admirable accent as its subtle irony, through which there seems +to thrill the reply of Destiny to the haughty resolutions that he had +undertaken. It is as though Death itself rose up from each page to sneer +and chuckle at the master-singer; and few things are more bitter on the +part of this poet--who had with his own hands ensepulchred himself as a +willing holocaust to the deceitful gods of factitious Art,--than the +constant appeals that he makes to Nature. The song no longer rings with +the old regal note; there is none of the trepidating joy of a Whitman, or +the yielding sweetness of an Emerson; our ear detects only the melopoeia +of a heart which had been wounded in its innermost recess. + +"_I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving +prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, +and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold +of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes so that +all the air shall be Arabia for me._"[12] + +These are the words of a convalescent; of a man newly risen from a bed of +sickness anticipating a richer and fuller life, unknowing that the +uplifted hand of Death suspended just above him, was destined to strike +him down at brief delay. + +In the darkness of his prison cell, he dreams of the mysterious herbs that +he will find in the realms of Nature; of the balms that he shall ferret +out amongst the plants of the earth, and which will bring peace for his +anguish, and deep-seated joy for the suffering that racked his brain. + +"_But Nature, whose sweet rains fall on the unjust and just alike, will +have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose +silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that +I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind +over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse +me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole._"[13] + +In presence of this beautiful passage, it is painful to remember how his +hopes were fated to be shattered by the cruellest of disappointments, and +how he was doomed to die in the grey desolation of a poverty-haunted room. + +Before drawing this notice to a close, it were not unfitting to recall +another name, borne by a Poet of wayward genius, who likewise wandered +astray in a forest of more than Dantean darkness, because the right way he +had for ever lost from view. That Poet was a poet of France, and the voice +of his glory and the echo of the songs he chanted resounded with that +proud and melodious note of genius which can never weary human ears. +Although this poet led a life which can be compared only to the life of +Oscar Wilde, he belonged to an order of mentality which differs too +greatly in its essential features to allow the accidents of the career of +the two men being used as a basis for comparing them closely together on +the intellectual plane. + +Verlaine belonged to that race of poets who distinguish themselves by +their perfect spontaneity; he was a veritable poet of instinct, and had +heard voices which no other mortal had heard before him on earth. In place +of the metallic verses of his predecessors, the verses that for the most +part are spoken by linguistic artists, he created a sort of ethereal +music, a song so sweet and so penetrating that it haunts us eternally like +the low, passionate, whisperings of a lover's voice. He gave us more than +royal largesse of a wonderful and delicious soul, that had no part or lot +in time, a music that was created for his soul alone; and we have +willingly forgotten many a haughtier voice for the bewitching strains that +this baptised faun played for us with such artless joy on his forest-grown +reed. + +The English poet was more complex and perhaps less sheerly human; and +even his errors have no other origin than the perpetual effort to astonish +us; whilst above all, that which staggers us most and stirs us so +profoundly is that these self-same errors, which had come into life under +such innocent conditions, became terribly real in virtue of that imperious +law which compels certain minds to render their dreams incarnate. + +As for his work, however finely polished, however exquisite it may be and +undoubtedly is, we have to confess that it has no power to move our souls +into high passion and lofty endeavour; although it might easily have +sufficed to conquer celebrity for more than one ambitious literary +craftsman. But we feel, with regard to Wilde, that we had a legitimate +right to insist on the accomplishment of far greater things, a more +sincere and genuine output, and are so much more dissatisfied because we +clearly see the great discord between the man who palpitated with intense +life, and the esthetic dandy whose cleverness overreached itself when he +tried to work out that life on admittedly artificial lines. + +This extraordinary divorce between intelligence and will-power was that +which gave rise to the striking drama of Wilde's career; albeit the word +drama looks strange and out of place, if applied only to the +sorrow-filled period that crowned with thorns the latter end of his +brilliant existence, if it be used for no other reason than to +particularize the great catastrophe that took place in the sight of all +the world. The fact is, the man's entire life was one perpetual drama. +Throughout the whole course of his existence, he persistently sought after +and that with impunity, all sorts of excitants that could at last no +longer be disguised under the name of experiences--and no doubt, others +more terrible still that fall under no human laws, would have come finally +to swell the ranks of their forerunners--and then, had the hand of Destiny +not arrested him in his course, he would have wound up by descending so +low that the artistic life of his soul would have been forever +extinguished. + +That, when all is said and done, would have been the veritable, the +irremediable tragedy. + +Fortunately, royal intellects such as these, can never utterly die, and +therein consists their greatest chastisement. Spasmodic movements agitate +them, revealing beneath their mendacious laughter the secret agony of +their souls; and we are suddenly called upon to witness the heart-rending +spectacle of the slow death-agony of a haughty, talented poet, a Petronius +self-poisoned through fear of Caesar or a Wilde whom a vicious and +over-wrought Public had only half assassinated, raising his poor, glazed +eyes towards the marvellous Light of Truth, whose glorious vision, we know +by the sure voice that comes "from the depths," he had caught at last.... + + * * * * * + +Oscar Wilde had desired to live a pagan's free and untramelled life in +Twentieth-century England, forgetful of the enormous fact that no longer +may we live pagan-wise, for the shadow of the Cross has shed a steadily +increasing gloom over the conditions that enlivened the joyous existence +of olden times. + +C. G. + + + + +The Trial of Oscar Wilde. + + +"In all men's hearts a slumbering swine lies low", says the French poet; +so come ye, whose porcine instincts have never been awakened, or if +rampant successfully hidden, and hurl the biggest, sharpest stones you can +lay your hands on at your wretched, degraded, humiliated brother, _who has +been found out_. + + + + +The Trial of Oscar Wilde + + +The life and death of Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, _poseur_ and convict, +can only fittingly be summarised as a tragedy. Every misspent life is a +tragedy more or less; but how much more tragic appear the elements of +despair and disaster when the victim to his own vices is a man of genius +exercising a considerable influence upon the thought and culture of his +day, and possessing every advantage which birth, education, talent and +station can bestow? Oscar Wilde was more than a clever and original +thinker. He was the inventor of a certain literary style, and, though his +methods, showy and eccentric as they were, lent themselves readily to +imitation, none of his followers could approach their "Master" in the +particular mode which he had made his own. There can be two opinions as +to the merits of his plays. There can be only one judgment as to their +daring and audacious originality. Of the ordinary and the commonplace +Wilde had a horror, which with him was almost a religion. He was +unmercifully chaffed throughout America when he appeared in public in a +light green suit adorned with a large sunflower; but he did not don this +outrageous costume because he preferred such startling clothing. He +adopted the dress in order to be original and assumed it because no other +living man was likely to be so garbed. He was consumed, in fact, with +overpowering vanity. He was possessed of a veritable demon of self-esteem. +He ate strange foods, and drank unusual liquors in order to be unlike any +of his contemporaries. His eccentricities of dress continued to the end. +On the first night of one of his plays--it was a brilliant triumph--he was +called upon by an enthusiastic audience for the customary speech. He was +much exercised in his mind as to what he could say that would be +unconventional and sensational. No mere platitudes or banalities for the +author of "Lady Windermere's Fan," who made a god of the spirit of Epigram +and almost canonized the art of Repartee. He said, "Ladies and Gentlemen: +I am glad you like my play. I like it very much myself too," which, if +candid, was hardly the remark of a modest and retiring author. The leopard +cannot change his spots and neither can the lion his skin. Even in his +beautiful book, "De Profundis"--surely the most extraordinary volume of +recent years--the man's character is writ so plainly that he who runs may +read. Man of letters, man of fashion, man of hideous vices, Oscar Wilde +remained to the last moment of his murdered life, a self-conscious +egotist. "Gentlemen," he gasped on his death-bed, hearing the doctors +express misgivings as to their fees, "it would appear that I am dying +beyond my means!" It was a brilliant sally and one can picture the +startled faces of the medical attendants. A genius lay a-dying and a +genius he remained till the breath of life departed. + +Genius we know to be closely allied to insanity and it were charitable to +describe this man as mad, besides approaching very nearly to the truth. +Something was out of gear in that finely attuned mind. Some thorn there +was among the intellectual roses which made him what he was. He pined for +strange passions, new sensations. His was the temperament of the Roman +sybarite. He often sighed for a return of the days when vice was deified. +He spoke of the glories of the Devastation, the awful woman and the +Alexandrian school at which little girls and young boys were instructed in +all the most secret and unthinkable forms of vice. Modern women satisfied +him not. Perverted passions consumed the fire of his being. He had had +children of his wife, but sexual intercourse between him and that most +unfortunate lady was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. +They had their several rooms. On many occasions Wilde actually brought the +companions of his abominable rites and sinful joys to his own home, and +indulged in his frightful propensities beneath the roof of the house which +sheltered his own sons and their most unhappy mother. Could the man +capable of this atrocity possess a normal mind? Can Oscar Wilde, who +committed moral suicide and made of himself a social pariah, be regarded +as a sane man? London society is not so strict nor straight-laced that it +will not forgive much laxity in its devoted votaries. Rumour had been busy +with the name of Oscar Wilde for a long time before the whole awful truth +became known. He was seen, constantly, at theatres and restaurants with +persons in no way fit to be his associates and these persons were not +girls or women. He paraded his shameful friendships and flaunted his +villainous companions in society's face. People began to look askance at +the famous wit. Doors began to be closed to him. He was ostracised by all +but the most Bohemian coteries. But even those who were still proud to +rank him among their friends did not know how far he had wilfully drawn +himself into the web of disgrace. Much that seemed strange and +unaccountable was attributed to his well-known love of pose. Men shrugged +their shoulders and declared that "Wilde meant no harm. It was his +vainglorious way of showing his contempt for the opinion of the world. Men +of such parts could not be judged by ordinary standards. Intellectually +Wilde was fit to mix with the immortals. If he preferred the society of +miserable, beardless, stunted youths destitute alike of decency or +honour--it was no affair of theirs," and so on _ad nauseam_. Meanwhile, +heedless of the warnings of friends and the sneers of foes, Wilde went his +own way--to destruction. + +He was addicted to the vice and crime of sodomy long before he formed a +"friendship" which was destined to involve him in irretrievable ruin. In +London, he met a younger son of the eccentric Marquis of Queensbury, Lord +Alfred Douglas by name. This youth was being educated at Cambridge. He +was of peculiar temperament and talented in a strong, frothy style. He was +good-looking in an effeminate, lady-like way. He wrote verse. His poems +not being of a manner which could be acceptable to a self-respecting +publication, his efforts appeared in an eccentric and erratic magazine +which was called "The Chameleon." In this precious serial appeared a +"poem" from the pen of Lord Alfred dedicated to his father in these filial +words: "To the Man I Hate." + +Oscar Wilde at once developed an extraordinary and dangerous interest in +this immature literary egg. A being of his own stamp, after his own heart, +was Lord Alfred Douglas. The love of women delighted him not. The +possession of a young girl's person had no charm for him. He yearned for +higher flights in the realms of love! He sought unnatural affection. +Wilde, experienced in all the symptoms of a disordered sexual fancy, +contrived to exercise a remarkable and sinister influence over this youth. +Again and again and again did his father implore Lord Alfred Douglas to +separate himself from the tempter. Lord Queensberry threatened, persuaded, +bribed, urged, cajoled: all to no purpose. Wilde and his son were +constantly together. The nature of their friendship became the talk of the +town. It was proclaimed from the housetops. The Marquis, determined to +rescue him if it were humanly possible, horsewhipped his son in a public +thoroughfare and was threatened with a summons for assault. On one +occasion--it was the opening night of one of the Wilde plays--he sent the +author a bouquet of choice--vegetables! Three or four times he wrote to +him begging him to cancel his friendship with Lord Alfred. Once he called +at the house in Tite Street and there was a terrible scene. The Marquis +fumed; Wilde laughed. He assured his Lordship that only at his son's own +request would he break off the association which existed between them. The +Marquis, driven to desperation, called Wilde a disgusting name. The +latter, with a show of wrath, ordered the peer from his door and he was +obliged to leave. + +At all costs and hazards, at the risk of any pain and grief to himself, +Lord Queensberry was determined to break off the disgraceful _liaison_. He +stopped his son's allowance, but Wilde had, at that time, plenty of money +and his purse was his friend's. At last the father went to the length of +leaving an insulting message for Oscar Wilde at that gentleman's club. He +called there and asked for Wilde. The clerk at the enquiry office stated +that Mr. Wilde was not on the premises. The Marquis then produced a card +and wrote upon it in pencil these words, "Oscar Wilde is a Bugger." This +elegant missive he directed to be handed to the author when he should next +appear at the club. + +From this card--Lord Queensberry's last resource--grew the whole great +case, which amazed and horrified the world in 1895. Oscar Wilde was +compelled, however reluctantly, to take the matter up. Had he remained +quiescent under such a public affront, his career in England would have +been at an end. He bowed to the inevitable and a libel action was +prepared. + +One is often compelled to wonder if he foresaw the outcome. One asks +oneself if he realized what defeat in this case would portend. The stakes +were desperately high. He risked, in a Court of Law, his reputation, his +position, his career and even his freedom. Did he know what the end to it +all would be? + +Whatever Wilde's fears and expectations were, his opponent did not +under-estimate the importance of the issue. If he could not induce a jury +of twelve of his fellow-countrymen to believe that the plaintiff was what +he had termed him, he, the Marquis of Queensberry, would be himself +disgraced. Furthermore, there would, in the event of failure, be heavy +damages to pay and the poor man was not over rich. Wilde had many and +powerful friends. For reasons which it is not necessary to enlarge upon, +Lord Queensberry was not liked or respected by his own order. The ultimate +knowledge that he was a father striving to save a loved son from infamy +changed all that, and his Lordship met with nothing but sympathy from the +general public in the latter stages of the great case. + +Sir Edward Clarke was retained for the plaintiff. It is needless to refer +to the high estimation in which this legal and political luminary is held +by all classes of society. From first to last he devoted himself to the +lost cause of Oscar Wilde with a whole-hearted devotion which was beyond +praise. The upshot of the libel action must have pained and disgusted him; +yet he refused to abandon his client, and, in the two criminal trials, +defended him with a splendid loyalty and with the marked ability that +might be expected from such a counsel. The acute, energetic, silver-spoken +Mr. Carson led on the other side. It is not necessary to make more than +passing mention of the conspicuous skill with which the able lawyer +conducted the case for the defendant. Even the gifted plaintiff himself +cut a sorry figure when opposed to Mr. Carson. + +Extraordinary interest was displayed in the action; and the courts were +besieged on each day that the trial lasted. Remarkable revelations were +expected and they were indeed forthcoming. Enormous pains had been taken +to provide a strong defence and it was quite clear almost after the first +day that Wilde's case would infallibly break down. He made some +astonishing admissions in the witness-box and even disgusted many of his +friends by the flippancy and affected unconcern of his replies to +questions of the most damaging nature. He, apparently, saw nothing +indecorous in facts which must shock any other than the most depraved. He +saw nothing disgusting in friendships of a kind to which only one +construction could be put. He gave expensive dinners to ex-barmen and the +like: ignorant, brutish young fools--because they amused him! He presented +youths of questionable moral character with silver cigarette-cases because +their society was pleasant! He took young men to share his bedroom at +hotels and saw nothing remarkable in such proceedings. He gave sums of +thirty pounds to ill-bred youths--accomplished blackmailers--because they +were hard-up and he felt they did not deserve poverty! He assisted other +young men of a character equally undesirable, to go to America and +received letters from them in which they addressed him as "Dear Oscar," +and sent him their love. In short, his own statements damned him. Out of +his own mouth--and he posing all the time--was he convicted. The case +could have but one ending. Sir Edward Clarke--pained, surprised, +shocked--consented to a verdict for the Marquis of Queensberry and the +great libel case was at an end. The defendant left the court proudly +erect, conscious that he had been the means of saving his son and of +eradicating from society a canker which had been rotting it unnoticed, +except by a few, for a very long time. Oscar Wilde left the court a ruined +and despised man. People--there were one or two left who were loyal to +him--turned aside from him with loathing. He had nodded to six or seven +friends in court on the last day of the trial and turned ashen pale when +he observed their averted looks. All was over for him. The little +supper-parties with a few choice wits; the glorious intoxication of +first-night applause; the orgies in the infamous dens of his boon +companions--all these were no more for him. Oscar Wilde, _bon vivant_, man +of letters, arbiter of literary fashion, stood at the bar of public +opinion, a wretch guilty of crimes against which the body recoils and the +mind revolts. Oh! what a falling-off was there! + + * * * * * + +If any reader would care to know the impression made upon the opinion of +the London world by the revelations of this lawsuit, let him turn to the +"Daily Telegraph" of the morning following the dramatic result of the +trial. In that great newspaper appeared a leading article in reference to +Oscar Wilde, the terms of which, though deserved, were most scathing, +denunciatory, and bitter. Yet a general feeling of relief permeated the +regret which was universally expressed at so terrible a termination of a +distinguished career. Society was at no pains to hide its relief that the +Augean stable has been cleansed and that a terrible scandal had been +exorcised from its midst. + +It now becomes a necessary, albeit painful task, to describe the +happenings incidental or subsequent to the Wilde & Queensberry +proceedings. It was certain that matters could not be allowed to rest as +they were. A jury in a public court had convinced themselves that Lord +Queensberry's allegations were strictly true and the duty of the Public +Prosecutor was truly clear. The law is not, or should not be, a respector +of persons, and Oscar Wilde, genius though he were, was not less amenable +to the law than would be any ignorant boor suspected of similar crimes. +The machinery of legal process was set in action and the arrest of Wilde +followed as a matter of course. + +A prominent name in the libel action against Lord Queensberry had been +that of one Alfred Taylor. This individual, besides being himself guilty +of the most infamous practices, had, it would appear, for long acted as a +sort of precursor for the Apostle of Culture and his capture took place at +nearly the same time as that of his principal. The latter was arrested at +a certain quiet and fashionable hotel whither he had gone with one or two +yet loyal friends after the trial for libel. His arrest was not +unexpected, of course; but it created a tremendous sensation and vast +crowds collected at Bow Street Police Station and in the vicinity during +the preliminary examinations before the Magistrate. The prisoner Wilde +bore himself with some show of fortitude, but it was clear that the iron +had already entered into his soul and his old air of jaunty indifference +to the opinion of the world had plainly given way to a mental anxiety +which could not altogether be hidden, though it could be controlled. On +one occasion as, fur-coated, silk-hatted, he entered the dock, he nodded +familiarly to the late Sir Augustus Harris, but that magnate of the +theatrical world deliberately turned his back upon the playwriting +celebrity. The evidence from first to last was followed with the most +intense interest and the end of it was that Oscar Wilde was fully +committed for trial. + +The case came on at the Old Bailey during the month of April, 1895, and it +was seen that the interest had in no wise abated. Mr. Justice Charles +presided and he was accompanied by the customary retinue of Corporation +dignitaries. The court was crowded in every part and hundreds of people +were unsuccessful in efforts to obtain admission. A reporter for a Sunday +newspaper wrote: "Wilde's personal appearance has changed little since his +committal from Bow Street. He wears the same clothes and continues to +carry the same hat. He looks haggard and worn, and his long hair that was +so carefully arranged when last he was in the court, though not then in +the dock, is now dishevelled. Taylor, on the other hand, still neatly +dressed, appears not to have suffered from his enforced confinement. But +he no longer attempts to regard the proceedings with that indifference +which he affected when first before the magistrate." + +As soon as Wilde and his confederate took their places in the dock, each +held a whispered consultation with his counsel and the Clerk of Arraigns +then read over the indictments. Both prisoners pleaded "Not guilty," +Taylor speaking in a loud and confident tone. Wilde spoke quietly, looked +very grave and gave attentive heed to the formal opening proceedings. + +Mr. C. F. Gill led for the prosecution and he rose amidst a breathless +silence, to outline the main facts of the case. After begging the jury to +dismiss from their minds anything that they might have heard or read in +regard to the affair, and to abandon all prejudice on either side, he +described at some length the circumstances which led up to the present +prosecution. He spoke of the arrest and committal of the Marquis of +Queensberry on a charge of criminal libel and of the collapse of the case +for the prosecution when the case was heard at the Old Bailey. He alluded +to the subsequent inevitable arrest of Wilde and Taylor and of the +committal of both prisoners to take their trial at the present Sessions. + +Wilde, he said, was well-known as a dramatic author and generally, as a +literary man of unusual attainments. He had resided, until his arrest, at +a house in Tite Street, Chelsea, where his wife lived with the children of +the marriage. Taylor had had numerous addresses, but for the time covered +by these charges, had dwelt in Little College Street, and afterwards in +Chapel Street. Although Wilde had a house in Tite Street, he had at +different times occupied rooms in St. James's Place, the Savoy Hotel and +the Albermarle Hotel. It would be shown that Wilde and Taylor were in +league for certain purposes and Mr. Gill then explained the specific +allegations against the prisoners. Wilde, he asserted, had not hesitated, +soon after his first introduction to Taylor, to explain to him to what +purpose he wished to put their acquaintance. Taylor was familiar with a +number of young men who were in the habit of giving their bodies, or +selling them, to other men for the purpose of sodomy. It appeared that +there was a number of youths engaged in this abominable traffic and that +one and all of them were known to Taylor, who went about and sought out +for them men of means who were willing to pay heavily for the indulgence +of their favorite vice. Mr. Gill endeavoured to show that Taylor himself +was given to sodomy and that he had himself indulged in these filthy +practices with the same youths as he agreed to procure for Wilde. The +visits of the latter to Taylor's rooms were touched upon and the +circumstances attending these visits were laid bare. On nearly every +occasion when Wilde called, a young man was present with whom he committed +the act of sodomy. The names of various young men connected with these +facts were mentioned in turn and the case of the two Parkers was given as +a sample of many others on which the learned counsel preferred to dwell +with less minuteness. + +When Taylor gave up his rooms in Little College Street and took up his +abode in Chapel Street, he left behind him a number of compromising +papers, which would be produced in evidence against the prisoners; and he +should submit in due course that there was abundant corroboration of the +statements of the youths involved. Mr. Gill pointed out the peculiarities +in the case of Frederick Atkins. This youth had accompanied the prisoner +Wilde to Paris, and there could be no doubt whatever that the latter had +in the most systematic way endeavoured to influence this young man's mind +towards vicious courses and had endeavoured to mould him to his own +depraved will. The relations which had existed between the prisoner and +another lad, one Alfred Wood, were also fully described and the learned +counsel made special allusion to the remarkable manner in which Wilde had +lavished money upon Wood prior to the departure of that youth for America. + +Mr. Gill referred to yet another of Wilde's youthful familiars--namely: +Sidney Mavor--in regard to whom, he said, the jury must form their own +conclusions after they had heard the evidence. Among other things to which +he would ask them to direct careful attention was a letter written in +pencil by Taylor, the prisoner, to this youth. The communication ran: +"Dear Sid, I cannot wait any longer. Come at once and see Oscar at Tite +Street. I am, Yours ever, Alfred Taylor." The use of the christian name of +Wilde in so familiar a way suggested the nature of the acquaintance which +existed between Mavor and Wilde, who was old enough to be his father. In +conclusion, Mr. Gill asked the jury to give the case, painful as it must +necessarily be, their most earnest and careful consideration. + +Both Wilde and Taylor paid keen attention to the opening statement. They +exchanged no word together and it was observed that Wilde kept as far +apart from his companion in the dock, as he possibly could. + +The first witness called was Charles Parker. He proved to be a rather +smartly-attired youth, fresh-coloured, and of course, clean-shaven. He was +very pale and appeared uneasy. He stated that he had first met Taylor at +the St. James' Restaurant. The latter had got into conversation with him +and the young fellows with him, and had insisted on "standing" drinks. +Conversation of a certain nature passed between them. Taylor called +attention to the prostitutes who frequent Piccadilly Circus and remarked: +"I can't understand sensible men wasting their money on painted trash like +that. Many do, though. But there are a few who know better. Now, you could +get money in a certain way easily enough, if you cared to." The witness +had formerly been a valet and he was at this time out of employment. He +understood to what Taylor alluded and made a coarse reply. + +Mr. GILL.--"I am obliged to ask you what it was you actually said." + +WITNESS.--"I do not like to say." + +Mr. GILL.--"You were less squeamish at the time, I daresay. I ask you for +the words." + +WITNESS.--"I said that if any old gentleman with money took a fancy to +me, I was agreeable. I was terribly hard up." + +Mr. GILL.--"What did Taylor say?" + +WITNESS.--"He laughed and said that men far cleverer, richer and better +than I preferred things of that kind." + +Mr. GILL.--"Did Taylor mention the prisoner Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Not at that time. He arranged to meet me again and I +consented." + +Mr. GILL.--"Where did you first meet Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"At the Solferino Restaurant." + +Mr. GILL.--"Tell me what transpired." + +WITNESS.--"Taylor said he could introduce me to a man who was good for +plenty of money. Wilde came in later and I was formally introduced. Dinner +was served for four in a private room." + +Mr. GILL.--"Who made the fourth?" + +WITNESS.--"My brother, William Parker. I had promised Taylor that he +should accompany me." + +Mr. GILL.--"What happened during dinner?" + +WITNESS.--"There was plenty of champagne and brandy and coffee. We all +partook of it." + +Mr. GILL.--"Of what nature was the conversation?" + +WITNESS.--"General, at first. Nothing was then said as to the purposes for +which we had come together." + +Mr. GILL.--"And then?" + +WITNESS.--"Wilde invited me to go to his rooms at the Savoy Hotel. Only he +and I went, leaving my brother and Taylor behind. Wilde and I went in a +cab. At the Savoy we went to his--Wilde's--sitting-room." + +Mr. GILL.--"More drink was offered you there?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes; we had liqueurs." + +Mr. GILL.--"Let us know what occurred." + +WITNESS.--"He committed the act of sodomy upon me." + +Mr. GILL.--"With your consent?" + +The witness did not reply. Further examined, he said that Wilde on that +occasion had given him two pounds and asked him to call upon him again a +week later. He did so, the same thing occurred and Wilde then gave him +three pounds. The witness next described a visit to Little College Street, +to Taylor's rooms. Wilde used to call there and the same thing occurred as +at the Savoy. For a fortnight or three weeks the witness lodged in +Park-Walk, close to Taylor's house. There too he was visited by Wilde. The +witness gave a detailed account of the disgusting proceedings there. He +said, "I was asked by Wilde to imagine that I was a woman and that he was +my lover. I had to keep up this illusion. I used to sit on his knees and +he used to play with my privates as a man might amuse himself with a +girl." Wilde insisted in this filthy make-believe being kept up. Wilde +gave him a silver cigarette case and a gold ring, both of which articles +he pawned. The prisoner said, "I don't suppose boys are different to girls +in acquiring presents from them who are fond of them." He remembered Wilde +having rooms at St. James's Place and the witness visited him there. + +Mr. GILL.--"Where else have you been with Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"To Kettner's Restaurant." + +Mr. GILL.--"What happened there?" + +WITNESS.--"We dined there. We always had a lot of wine. Wilde would talk +of poetry and art during dinner, and of the old Roman days." + +Mr. GILL.--"On one occasion you proceeded from Kettner's to Wilde's +house?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. We went to Tite Street. It was very late at night. Wilde +let himself and me in with a latchkey. I remained the night, sleeping with +the prisoner, and he himself let me out in the early morning before anyone +was about." + +Mr. GILL.--"Where else have you visited this man?" + +WITNESS.--"At the Albemarle Hotel. The same thing happened then." + +Mr. GILL.--"Where did your last interview take place?" + +WITNESS.--"I last saw Wilde in Trafalgar Square about nine months ago. He +was in a hansom and saw me. He alighted from the hansom." + +Mr. GILL.--"What did he say?" + +WITNESS.--"He said, 'Well, you are looking as pretty as ever.' He did not +ask me to go anywhere with him then." + +The witness went on to say that during the period of his acquaintance with +Wilde, he frequently saw Taylor, and the latter quite understood and was +aware of the motive of the acquaintance. At the Little College Street +rooms he had frequently seen Wood, Atkins and Scaife, and he knew that +these youths were "in the same line, at the same game," as himself. In the +August previous to this trial he was at a certain house in Fitzroy +Square. Orgies of the most disgraceful kind used to happen there. The +police made a raid upon the premises and he and the Taylors were arrested. +From that time he had ceased all relationship with the latter. Since that +event he had enlisted, and while away in the country he was seen by +someone representing Lord Queensberry and made a statement. The evidence +of this witness created a great sensation in court, and it was increased +when Sir Edward Clarke rose to cross-examine. This began after the +adjournment. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"When were you seen in the country in reference to +this case?" + +WITNESS.--"Towards the end of March." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who saw you?" + +WITNESS.--"Mr. Russell." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was there no examination before that?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you state at Bow Street that you received L30 not to say +anything about a certain case?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Now, I do not ask you to give me the name of the gentleman +from whom this money was extorted, but I ask you to give me the name of +the agents." + +WITNESS.--"Wood & Allen." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where were you living then?" + +WITNESS.--"In Cranford Street." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did the incident occur in consequence of which you +received that L30?" + +WITNESS.--"About two weeks before." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where?" + +WITNESS.--"At Camera Square." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I'll leave that question. You say positively that Mr. Wilde +committed sodomy with you at the Savoy?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"But you have been in the habit of accusing other gentlemen +of the same offence?" + +WITNESS.--"Never, unless it has been done." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I submit that you blackmail gentlemen?" + +WITNESS.--"No, Sir, I have accepted money, but it has been offered to me +to pay me for the offence. I have been solicited. I have never suggested +this offence to gentlemen." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was the door locked during the time you describe?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not think so. It was late and the prisoner told the waiter +not to come up again." + +The next witness was William Parker. This youth corroborated his brother's +evidence. He said he was present at the dinner with Taylor and Wilde +described by the last witness. Wilde paid all his attention to +his--witness's--brother. He, Wilde, often fed his brother off his own fork +or out of his own spoon. His brother accepted a preserved cherry from +Wilde's own mouth--he took it into his and this trick was repeated three +or four times. His brother went off with the prisoner to his rooms at the +Savoy and the witness remained behind with Taylor, who said, "Your brother +is lucky. Oscar does not care what he pays if he fancies a chap." + +Ellen Grant was the landlady of the house in Little College Street at +which Taylor lodged. She gave evidence as to the visits of various lords +and stated that Wilde was a fairly frequent caller. He would remain for +hours and one of the lads was generally closeted with him. Once she tried +the door and found it locked. She heard whispering and laughing and her +suspicions were aroused though she did not like to take steps in the +matter. + +Lucy Rumsby, who let a room to Charles Parker at Chelsea, gave rather +similar evidence, but Wilde does not appear to have called there more than +once and that occasion it was to take out Parker, who went away with him. + +Sophia Gray, Taylor's landlady in Chapel Street, also gave evidence. She +amused the court by the emphatic and outspoken way in which she explained +that she had no idea of the nature of what was going on. Several young men +were constantly calling upon Taylor and were alone with him for a long +time, but he used to say that they were clerks for whom he hoped to find +employment. The prisoner Wilde was a frequent visitor. + +But all this latter evidence paled as regards sinister significance beside +that furnished by a young man named Alfred Wood. This young wretch +admitted to acts of the grossest indecency with Oscar Wilde. He said, +"Wilde saw his influence to induce me to consent. He made me nearly drunk. +He used to put his hand inside my trousers beneath the table at dinner and +compel me to do the same to him. Afterwards, I used to lie on a sofa with +him. It was a long time, however, before I would allow him to actually do +the act of sodomy. He gave me money to go to America." + +Sir Edward Clarke submitted this self-disgraced witness to a very vigorous +cross-examination. + +Sir EDWARD.--"What have you been doing since your return from America?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, I have not done much." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you done anything?" + +WITNESS.--"I have had no regular employment." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I thought not." + +WITNESS.--"I could not get anything to do." + +Sir EDWARD.--"As a matter of fact, you have had no respectable work for +over three years?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, no." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did not you, in conjunction with Allen, succeed in getting +L300 from a gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes; but he was guilty with Allen." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How much did you receive?" + +WITNESS.--"I advised Allen how to proceed. He gave me L130." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who else got any of this money?" + +WITNESS.--"Parker. Charles Parker got some and also Wood." + +Thos. Price was the next witness. This man was a waiter at a private hotel +in St. James's and he testified to Wilde's visits there and to the number +of young men, "of quite inferior station," who called to see him. Then +came Frank Atkins, whose evidence is given in full. + +Mr. AVORY.--"How old are you?" + +WITNESS.--"I am 20 years old." + +Mr. AVORY.--"What is your business?" + +WITNESS.--"I have been a billiard-marker." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You are doing nothing now?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Who introduced you to Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"I was introduced to him by Schwabe in November, 1892." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Have you met Lord Alfred Douglas?" + +WITNESS.--"I have. I dined with him and Wilde on several occasions. They +pressed me to go to Paris." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You went with them?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You told Wilde on one occasion while in Paris that you had +spent the previous night with a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"No. I had arranged to meet a girl at the Moulin Rouge, and +Wilde told me not to go. However, I did go, but the woman was not there." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You returned to London with Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Did he give you money?" + +WITNESS.--"He gave me a cigarette-case." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You were then the best of friends?" + +WITNESS.--"He called me Fred and I addressed him as Oscar. We liked each +other, but there was no harm in it." + +Mr. AVORY.--"Did you visit Wilde on your return?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, at Tite Street. Wilde also called upon me at Osnaburgh +Street. On the latter occasion one of the Parkers was present." + +Mr. AVORY.--"You know most of these youths. Do you know Sidney Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"Only by sight." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"Were you ill at Osnaburgh Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, I had small-pox and was removed to the hospital ship. +Before I went I wrote to Parker asking him to write to Wilde and request +him to come and see me, and he did so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You are sure you returned from Paris with Mr. Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did any impropriety ever take place between you and Wilde?" + +WITNESS.--"Never." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you ever lived with a man named Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What was he?" + +WITNESS.--"A bookmaker." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you and this Burton been engaged in the business of +blackmailing?" + +WITNESS.--"I have a professional name. I have sometimes called myself +Denny." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Has this man Burton, to your knowledge, obtained money from +gentlemen by accusing them or threatening to accuse them of certain +offences?" + +WITNESS.--"Not to my knowledge." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Not in respect to a certain Birmingham gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"That being your answer, I must particularize. On June 9th, +1891, did you and Burton obtain a large sum of money from a Birmingham +gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"Certainly not." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Then I ask you if in June, '91, Burton did not take rooms +for you in Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes; and he lived with me there." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were in the habit of taking men home with you then?" + +WITNESS.--"Not for the purposes of blackmail." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Well, for indecent purposes." + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Give me the names of two or three of the people whom you +have taken home to that address?" + +WITNESS.--"I cannot. I forget them." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Now I am going to ask you a direct question, and I ask you +to be careful in your reply. Were you and Burton ever taken to Rochester +Road Police Station?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Well, was Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"I think not--at least, he was not, to my knowledge." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did the Birmingham gentleman give to Burton a cheque for +L200 drawn in the name of S. Denis or Denny, your own name?" + +WITNESS.--"Not to my knowledge." + +Sir EDWARD.--"About two years ago, did you and someone else go to the +Victoria Hotel with two American gentlemen?" + +WITNESS.--"No, I did not. Never." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I think you did. Be careful in your replies. Did Burton +extort money from these gentlemen?" + +WITNESS.--"I have never been there at all." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you ever been to Anderton's Hotel and stayed a night +with a gentleman, whom you threatened the next morning with exposure?" + +WITNESS.--"I have not." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did you go abroad with Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"I think in February, 1892." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did you last go with him abroad?" + +WITNESS.--"Last spring." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How long were you away?" + +WITNESS.--"Oh! about a month." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where did you stay?" + +WITNESS.--"We went to Nice and stayed at Gaze's Hotel." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were having a holiday?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Which you continued with business in your usual way?" + +The witness did not reply. + +Sir EDWARD.--"What were you and Burton doing at Nice?" + +WITNESS.--"Simply enjoying ourselves." + +Sir EDWARD.--"During this visit of enjoyment you and Burton fell out, I +think." + +WITNESS.--"Oh, dear, no!" + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet you separated from this Burton after that visit?" + +WITNESS.--"I gave up being a bookmaker's clerk." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What name did Burton use in the ring?" + +WITNESS.--"Watson was his betting name." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you blackmail a gentleman at Nice?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Are you sure there was no quarrel between you and Burton at +Nice?" + +WITNESS.--"There may have been a little one, but I don't remember anything +of the kind." + +Mr. Grain then put some questions to the Witness. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you go to Scarbro' about a year ago?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did Burton go with you?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What was your business there?" + +WITNESS.--"I was engaged professionally. I sang at the Aquarium there." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you get acquainted while there with a foreign gentleman, +a Count?" + +WITNESS.--"Not acquainted." + +At this moment Mr. Grain wrote a name on a piece of paper and handed it up +to the witness, who read it. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Do you know that gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"No, I heard his name mentioned at Scarborough." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Then you never spoke to him?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Was not a large sum--about L500--paid to you or Burton by +that gentleman about this time last year?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Had you any engagement at the Scarborough Aquarium?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"How much did you receive a week?" + +WITNESS.--"I was paid four pounds ten shillings." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"How long were you there?" + +WITNESS.--"Three weeks." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Have you ever lived in Buckingham Palace Road?" + +WITNESS.--"I have." + +Mr. Grain wrote at this stage on another slip of paper and it was handed +up to the witness-box. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Look at that piece of paper. Do you know the name written +there?" + +WITNESS.--"I never saw it before." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"When were you living in Buckingham Palace Road?" + +WITNESS.--"In 1892." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Do you remember being introduced to an elderly man in the +City?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you take him to your room, permit him to commit sodomy +with and upon you, rob him of his pocket-book and threaten him with +exposure if he complained?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you threaten to extort money from him because he had +agreed to accompany you home for a foul purpose?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Did you ever stay at a place in the suburbs on the South +Western Railway with Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What other addresses have you had in London during the last +three years?" + +WITNESS.--"None but those I have told you." + +This concluded the evidence of this witness for the time being. + +Mary Applegate, employed as a housekeeper at Osnaburgh Street, said Atkins +used to lodge there and left about a month ago. Wilde visited him at this +house on two occasions that she was cognisant of. She stated that one of +the housemaids came to her and complained of the state of the sheets of +the bed in which Atkins slept after Wilde's first visit. The sheets were +stained in a peculiar way. It may be explained here, in order to make the +witness's evidence understood, that the sodomistic act has much the same +effect as an enema inserted up the rectum. There is an almost immediate +discharge, though not, of course, to the extent produced by the enema +operation. + +The next witness called was Sidney Mavor, a smooth-faced young fellow with +dark hair and eyes. He stated that he was now in partnership with a friend +in the City. He first made the acquaintance of the prisoner Taylor at the +Gaiety Theatre in 1892. He afterwards visited him at Little College +Street. Taylor was very civil and friendly and introduced him to different +people. The witness did not think at that time that Taylor had any +ulterior designs. One day, however, Taylor said to him, "I know a man, in +an influential position, who could be of great use to you, Mavor. He likes +young men when they're modest and nice in manners and appearance. I'll +introduce you." It was arranged that they should dine at Kettner's +Restaurant the next evening. He called for Taylor, who said, "I am glad +you've made yourself pretty. Mr. Wilde likes nice, clean boys." That was +the first time Wilde's name was mentioned. Arrived at the restaurant, they +were shown into a private room. A man named Schwabe and Wilde and another +gentleman came in later. He believed the other gentleman to be Lord +Alfred Douglas. The conversation at dinner was, the witness thought, +peculiar, but he knew Wilde was a Bohemian and he did not think the talk +strange. He was placed next to Wilde, who used occasionally to pull his +ear or chuck him under the chin, but he did nothing that was actually +objectionable. He, Wilde, said to Taylor, "Our little lad has pleasing +manners; we must see more of him." Wilde took his address and the witness +soon after received a silver cigarette-case inscribed "Sidney, from O. W. +October 1892." "It was," said the innocent-looking witness, "quite a +surprise to me!" In the same month he received a letter making an +appointment at the Albemarle Hotel and he went there and saw Wilde. The +witness explained that after he saw Mr. Russell, the solicitor, on March +30th, he did not visit Taylor, nor did he receive a letter from Taylor. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"With regard to a certain dinner at which you were +present. Was the gentleman who gave the dinner of some social position?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Taylor sent or gave you some cheques, I believe?" + +WITNESS.--"He did." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Were they in payment of money you had advanced to him, +merely?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. C. F. GILL.--"The gentleman--'of position'--who gave the dinner was +quite a young man, was he not?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"Was Taylor, and Wilde also, present?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"In fact, it was their first meeting, was it not?" + +WITNESS.--"So I understand." + +Mavor being dismissed from the box, Edward Shelley was the next witness. +He gave his age as twenty-one and said that in 1891 he was employed by a +firm of publishers in Vigo Street. At that time Wilde's books were being +published by that firm. Wilde was in the habit of coming to the firm's +place of business and he seemed to take note of the witness and generally +stopped and spoke to him for a few moments. As Wilde was leaving Vigo +Street one day he invited him to dine with him at the Albemarle Hotel. The +witness kept the appointment--he was proud of the invitation--and they +dined together in a public room. Wilde was very kind and attentive, +pressed witness to drink, said he could get him on and finally invited him +to go with him to Brighton, Cromer, and Paris. The witness did not go. +Wilde made him a present of a set of his writings, including the notorious +and objectionable "Dorian Gray." Wilde wrote something in the books. "To +one I like well," or something to that effect, but the witness removed the +pages bearing the inscription. He only did that after the decision in the +Queenberry case. He was ashamed of the inscriptions and felt that they +were open to misconception. His father objected to his friendship with +Wilde. At first the witness thought that the latter was a kind of +philanthropist, fond of youth and eager to be of assistance to young men +of any promise. Certain speeches and actions on the part of Wilde caused +him to alter this opinion. Pressed as to the nature of the actions he +complained of, he said that Wilde once kissed him and put his arms round +him. The witness objected vigorously, according to his own statement, and +Wilde later said he was sorry and that he had drank too much wine. About +two years ago--in 1893--he wrote a certain letter to Wilde. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"On what subject?" + +WITNESS.--"It was to break off the acquaintance." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How did the letter begin?" + +WITNESS.--"It began 'Sir'." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Give me the gist of it." + +WITNESS.--"I believe I said I have suffered more from my acquaintance with +you than you are ever likely to know of. I further said that he was an +immoral man, and that I would never, if I could help it, see him again." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you ever see him again after that?" + +WITNESS.--"I did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Why did you go and dine with Mr. Wilde a second time?" + +WITNESS.--"I suppose I was a young fool. I tried to think the best of +him." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You seem to have put the worst possible construction on his +liking for you. Did your friendly relations with Mr. Wilde remain unbroken +until the time you wrote that letter in March, 1893?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Have you seen Mr. Wilde since then?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"After that letter?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where did you see him?" + +WITNESS.--"I went to see him in Tite Street." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE then proceeded to question the witness with regard to +letters which he had written to Wilde both before and after the visits to +the Albemarle Hotel, and in the course of his replies the witness said +that he formed the opinion that "Wilde was really sorry for what he had +done." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"What do you mean by 'what he had done'?" + +WITNESS.--"His improper behaviour with young men." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet you say he never practised any actual improprieties upon +you?" + +WITNESS.--"Because he saw that I would never allow anything of the kind. +He did not disguise from me what he wanted, or what his usual customs with +young men were." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet you wrote him grateful letters breathing apparent +friendship?" + +WITNESS.--"For the reason I have given." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Well, we'll leave that question. Now, tell me, why did you +leave the Vigo Street firm of publishers?" + +WITNESS.--"Because it got to be known that I was friendly with Oscar +Wilde." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you leave the firm of your own accord?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Why?" + +WITNESS.--"People employed there--my fellow-clerks--chaffed me about my +acquaintance with Wilde." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In what way?" + +WITNESS.--"They implied scandalous things. They called me 'Mrs. Wilde' and +'Miss Oscar.'" + +Sir EDWARD.--"So you left?" + +WITNESS.--"I resolved to put an end to an intolerable position." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were in bad odour at home too, I think?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, a little." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I put it to you that your father requested you to leave his +house?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. He strongly objected to my friendship with Wilde." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were uneasy in your mind as to Wilde's object?" + +WITNESS.--"That is so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"When did your mental balance, if I can put it so, recover +itself?" + +WITNESS.--"About October or November last." + +Sir EDWARD.--"And have you remained well ever since?" + +WITNESS.--"I think so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Yet I find that in January of this year you were in serious +trouble?" + +WITNESS.--"In what way?" + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were arrested for an assault upon your father?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, I was." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where were you taken?" + +WITNESS.--"To the Fulham Police Station." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You were offered bail?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did you send to Wilde and ask him to bail you out?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What happened?" + +WITNESS.--"In an hour my father went to the station and I was liberated." + +This witness now being released, the previous witness, Atkins, was +recalled and a very sensational incident arose. During the luncheon +interval, Mr. Robert Humphreys, Wilde's solicitor, had been busy. Not +satisfied with Atkins's replies to the questions put to him in +cross-examination, he had searched the records at Scotland Yard and +Rochester Road and made some startling discoveries. A folded document was +handed up to the Judge. Mr. Justice Charles, who read it at once, assumed +a severe expression. The document was understood to be a copy of a record +from Rochester Road. Atkins, looking very sheepish and uncomfortable, +re-entered the witness-box and the Court prepared itself for some +startling disclosures. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"Now, I warn you to attend and to be very careful. I +am going to ask you a question; think before you reply." + +The JUDGE.--"Just be careful now, Atkins." + +Sir EDWARD.--"On June 10th, 1891, you were living at Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In Pimlico?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"James Burton was living there with you?" + +WITNESS.--"He was." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Were you both taken by two constables, 396 A & 500 A--you +may have forgotten the officer's numbers--to Rochester Road Police +Station and charged with demanding money from a gentleman with menaces. +You had threatened to accuse him of a disgusting offence?" + +WITNESS.--(huskily)--"I was not charged with that." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Were you taken to the police station?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You, and Burton?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What were you charged with?" + +WITNESS.--"With striking a gentleman." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In what place was it alleged this happened?" + +WITNESS.--"At the card-table." + +Sir EDWARD.--"In your own room at Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What was the name of the gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't know." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How long had you known him?" + +WITNESS.--"Only that night." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Where had you met him?" + +WITNESS.--"At the Alhambra." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Had you seen him before that time?" + +WITNESS.--"Not to speak to." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Meeting him at the Alhambra, did he accompany you to +Tatchbrook Street?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, to play cards." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Not to accuse him, when there, of attempting to indecently +handle you?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was Burton there?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Anyone else?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't think so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Was the gentleman sober?" + +WITNESS.--"Oh, yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"What room did you go into?" + +WITNESS.--"The sitting-room." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who called the police?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't know." + +Sir EDWARD.--"The landlady, perhaps?" + +WITNESS.--"I believe she did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Did the landlady give you and Burton into custody?" + +WITNESS.--"No; nobody did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Some person must have done. Who did?" + +WITNESS.--"All I can say is, I did not hear anybody." + +Sir EDWARD.--"At any rate you were taken to Rochester Road, and the +gentleman went with you?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Police Constable 396 A was here called into court and took up a position +close to the witness-box. He gazed curiously at Atkins, who wriggled about +and eyed him uneasily. + +Sir EDWARD.--"Now I ask you in the presence of this officer, was the +statement made at the police-station that you and the gentleman had been +in bed together?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't think so." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Think before you speak; it will be better for you. Did not +the landlady actually come into the room and see you and the gentleman +naked on or in the bed together?" + +WITNESS.--"I don't remember that she did." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You may as well tell me about it. You know. Was that +statement made?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, yes it was." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You had endeavoured to force money out of this gentleman?" + +WITNESS.--"I asked him for some money." + +Sir EDWARD.--"At the police-station the gentleman refused to prosecute?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"So you and Burton were liberated?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"About two hours ago, Atkins, I asked you these very +questions and you swore upon your oath that you had not been in custody at +all, and had never been taken to Rochester Road Police Station. How came +you to tell me those lies?" + +WITNESS.--"I did not remember it." + +Atkins looked somewhat crestfallen and abashed. Yet some of his former +brazen impudence still gleamed upon his now scarlet face. He heaved a deep +sigh of relief when told to leave the court by the judge, who pointed +sternly to the doorway. + +Of all the creatures associated with Wilde in these affairs, this Atkins +was the lowest and most contemptible. For some years he had been in the +habit of blackmailing men whom he knew to be inclined to perverted sexual +vices, and his was a well-known figure up West. He constantly frequented +the promenades of the music-halls. He "made up" his eyes and lips, wore +corsets and affected an effeminate air. He was an infallible judge of the +class of man he wished to meet and rarely made a mistake. He would follow +a likely subject about, stumble against him as though by accident and make +an elaborate apology in mincing, female tones. Once in conversation with +his "mark," he speedily contrived to make the latter aware that he did not +object to certain proposals. He invariably permitted the beastly act +before attempting blackmail, partly because it afforded him a stronger +hold over his "victim" and partly because he rejoiced in the disgusting +thing for its own sake. He was the butt of the ladies of the pavement +round Piccadilly Circus, who used to shout after him, enquire +sarcastically "if he had got off last night," and if his "toff hadn't +bilked him." He would affect to laugh and pass the thing off with a joke; +but, to his intimates, he assumed a great loathing for women of this +class, whom he appeared to regard as dangerous obstacles to the exercise +of his own foul trade. On several occasions he was assaulted by these +women. + +To return to the Trial of Wilde and Taylor. As soon as the enquiry was +resumed, Mr. Charles Mathews went down into the cells and had an +interview with the prisoner Wilde, and on his return entered into serious +consultation with his leader, Sir Edward Clarke. In the meanwhile, Taylor +conversed with his counsel, Mr. Grain, across the rail of the dock. It was +felt that an important announcement bearing on the conduct of the case was +likely to be made. It came from Mr. Gill, representing the prosecution. + +As soon as Mr. Justice Charles had taken his seat, the prosecuting counsel +rose and said that having considered the indictment, he had decided not to +ask for a verdict in the two counts charging the prisoners with +conspiracy. Subdued expressions of surprise were audible from the public +gallery when Mr. Gill delivered himself of this dramatic announcement, and +the sensation was strengthened a little later when Sir Edward Clarke +informed the jury that both the prisoners desired to give evidence and +would be called as witnesses. These matters having been determined upon, +Sir Edward Clarke rose and proceeded to make some severe criticisms upon +the conduct of the prosecution in what he referred to as the literary part +of the case. Hidden meanings, he said, had been most unjustly "read" into +the poetical and prose works of his client and it seemed that an +endeavour, though a futile one, was to be made to convict Mr. Wilde +because of a prurient construction which had been placed by his enemies +upon certain of his works. He alluded particularly to "Dorian Gray," which +was an allegory, pure and simple. According to the rather musty and +far-fetched notions of the prosecution, it was an impure and simple +allegory, but Wilde could not fairly be judged, he said, by the standards +of other men, for he was a literary eccentric, though intellectually a +giant, and he did not profess to be guided by the same sentiments as +animated other and less highly-endowed men. He then called Mr. Wilde. The +prisoner rose with seeming alacrity from his place in the dock, walked +with a firm tread and dignified demeanour to the witness-box, and leaning +across the rail in the same easy and not ungraceful attitude that he +assumed when examined by Mr. Carson in the libel action, prepared to +answer the questions addressed to him by his counsel. Wilde was first +interrogated as to his previous career. In the year 1884, he had married a +Miss Lloyd, and from that time to the present he had continued to live +with his wife at 16, Tite Street, Chelsea. He also occupied rooms in St. +James's Place, which were rented for the purposes of his literary labours, +as it was quite impossible to secure quiet and mental repose at his own +house, when his two young sons were at home. He had heard the evidence in +this case against himself, and asserted that there was no shadow of a +foundation for the charges of indecent behaviour alleged against himself. + +Mr. Gill then rose to cross-examine and the Court at once became on the +_qui vive_. Wilde seemed perfectly calm and did not change his attitude, +or tone of polite deprecation. + +Mr. GILL.--"You are acquainted with a publication entitled 'The +Chameleon'?" + +WITNESS.--"Very well indeed." + +Mr. GILL.--"Contributors to that journal are friends of yours?" + +WITNESS.--"That is so." + +Mr. GILL.--"I believe that Lord Alfred Douglas was a frequent +contributor?" + +WITNESS.--"Hardly that, I think. He wrote some verses occasionally for the +'Chameleon,' and, indeed, for other papers." + +Mr. GILL.--"The poems in question were somewhat peculiar?" + +WITNESS.--"They certainly were not mere commonplaces like so much that is +labelled poetry." + +Mr. GILL.--"The tone of them met with your critical approval?" + +WITNESS.--"It was not for me to approve or disapprove. I leave that to the +Reviews." + +Mr. GILL.--"At the trial Queensberry and Wilde you described them as +'beautiful poems'?" + +WITNESS.--"I said something tantamount to that. The verses were original +in theme and construction, and I admired them." + +Mr. GILL.--"In one of the sonnets by Lord A. Douglas a peculiar use is +made of the word 'shame'?" + +WITNESS.--"I have noticed the line you refer to." + +Mr. GILL.--"What significance would you attach to the use of that word in +connection with the idea of the poem?" + +WITNESS.--"I can hardly take it upon myself to explain the thoughts of +another man." + +Mr. GILL.--"You were remarkably friendly with the author? Perhaps he +vouchsafed you an explanation?" + +WITNESS.--"On one occasion he did." + +Mr. GILL.--"I should like to hear it." + +WITNESS.--"Lord Alfred explained that the word 'shame' was used in the +sense of modesty, _i. e._ to feel shame or not to feel shame." + +Mr. GILL.--"You can, perhaps, understand that such verses as these would +not be acceptable to the reader with an ordinarily balanced mind?" + +WITNESS.--"I am not prepared to say. It appears to me to be a question of +taste, temperament and individuality. I should say that one man's poetry +is another man's poison!" (Loud laughter.) + +Mr. GILL.--"I daresay! There is another sonnet. What construction can be +put on the line, 'I am the love that dare not speak its name'?" + +WITNESS.--"I think the writer's meaning is quite unambiguous. The love he +alluded to was that between an elder and younger man, as between David and +Jonathan; such love as Plato made the basis of his philosophy; such as was +sung in the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michael Angelo; that deep spiritual +affection that was as pure as it was perfect. It pervaded great works of +art like those of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. Such as 'passeth the +love of woman.' It was beautiful, it was pure, it was noble, it was +intellectual--this love of an elder man with his experience of life, and +the younger with all the joy and hope of life before him." + +The witness made this speech with great emphasis and some signs of +emotion, and there came from the gallery, at its conclusion, a medley of +applause and hisses which his lordship at once ordered to be suppressed. + +Mr. GILL.--"I wish to call your attention to the style of your +correspondence with Lord A. Douglas." + +WITNESS.--"I am ready. I am never ashamed of the style of any of my +writings." + +Mr. GILL.--"You are fortunate--or shall I say shameless? I refer to +passages in two letters in particular." + +WITNESS.--"Kindly quote them." + +Mr. GILL.--"In letter number one. You use this expression: 'Your slim gilt +soul,' and you refer to Lord Alfred's "rose-leaf lips." + +WITNESS.--"The letter is really a sort of prose sonnet in answer to an +acknowledgement of one I had received from Lord Alfred." + +Mr. GILL.--"Do you think that an ordinarily-constituted being would +address such expressions to a younger man?" + +WITNESS.--"I am not, happily, I think, an ordinarily constituted being." + +Mr. GILL.--"It is agreeable to be able to agree with you, Mr. Wilde." +(Laughter). + +WITNESS.--"There is, I assure you, nothing in either letter of which I +need be ashamed." + +Mr. GILL.--"You have heard the evidence of the lad Charles Parker?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"Of Atkins?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"Of Shelley?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GILL.--"And these witnesses have, you say, lied throughout?" + +WITNESS.--"Their evidence as to my association with them, as to the +dinners taking place and the small presents I gave them, is mostly true. +But there is not a particle of truth in that part of the evidence which +alleged improper behaviour." + +Mr. GILL.--"Why did you take up with these youths?" + +WITNESS.--"I am a lover of youth." (Laughter). + +Mr. GILL.--"You exalt youth as a sort of God?" + +WITNESS.--"I like to study the young in everything. There is something +fascinating in youthfulness." + +Mr. GILL.--"So you would prefer puppies to dogs, and kittens to cats?" +(Laughter). + +WITNESS.--"I think so. I should enjoy, for instance, the society of a +beardless, briefless, barrister quite as much as that of the most +accomplished Q. C." (Loud laughter). + +Mr. GILL.--"I hope the former, whom I represent in large numbers, will +appreciate the compliment." (More laughter). "These youths were much +inferior to you in station?" + +WITNESS.--"I never enquired, nor did I care, what station they occupied. I +found them, for the most part, bright and entertaining. I found their +conversation a change. It acted as a kind of mental tonic." + +Mr. GILL.--"You saw nothing peculiar or suggestive in the arrangement of +Taylor's rooms?" + +WITNESS.--"I cannot say that I did. They were Bohemian. That is all. I +have seen stranger rooms." + +Mr. GILL.--"You never suspected the relations that might exist between +Taylor and his young friends?" + +WITNESS.--"I had no need to suspect anything. Taylor's relations with his +friends appeared to me to be quite normal." + +Mr. GILL.--"You have attended to the evidence of the witness Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"I have." + +Mr. GILL.--"Is it true or false?" + +WITNESS.--"It is mainly true, but false inferences have been drawn from it +as from most of the evidence. Truth may be found, I believe, at the bottom +of a well. It is, apparently difficult to find it in a court of law." +(Laughter.) + +Mr. GILL.--"Nevertheless we endeavour to extract it. Did the witness Mavor +write you expressing a wish to break off the acquaintance?" + +WITNESS.--"I received a rather unaccountable and impertinent letter from +him for which he afterwards expressed great regret." + +Mr. GILL.--"Why should he have written it if your conduct had altogether +been blameless?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not profess to be able to explain the motives of most of +the witnesses. Mavor may have been told some falsehood about me. His +father was greatly incensed at his conduct at this time, and, I believe, +attributed his son's erratic courses to his friendship with me. I do not +think Mavor altogether to blame. Pressure was brought to bear upon him +and he was not then quite right in his mind." + +Mr. GILL.--"You made handsome presents to these young fellows?" + +WITNESS.--"Pardon me, I differ. I gave two or three of them a +cigarette-case. Boys of that class smoke a good deal of cigarettes. I have +a weakness for presenting my acquitances with cigarette-cases." + +Mr. GILL.--"Rather an expensive habit if indulged in indiscriminately." + +WITNESS.--"Less extravagant than giving jewelled-garters to ladies." +(Laughter). + +When a few more unimportant questions had been asked, Wilde left the +witness-box, returning to the dock with the same air of what may be +described as serious easiness. The impression created by his replies was +not, upon the whole, favorable to his cause. + +His place was taken by the prisoner Taylor. He said that he was +thirty-three years of age and was educated at Marlborough. When he was +twenty-one he came into L45,000. In a few years he ran through this +fortune, and at about the time he went to Chapel Street, he was made a +bankrupt. The charges made against him of misconduct were entirely +unfounded. He was asked point-blank if he had not been given to sodomy +from his early youth, and if he had not been expelled from a public-school +for being caught in a compromising situation with a small boy in the +lavatory. Taylor was also asked if he had not actually obtained a living +since his bankruptcy by procuring lads and young men for rich gentlemen +whom he knew to be given to this vice. He was also asked if he had not +extracted large sums of money from wealthy men by threatening to accuse +them of immoralities. To all these plain questions he returned in direct +answer, "No." + +After the luncheon interval, Sir Edward Clark rose to address the jury in +defence of Oscar Wilde. He began by carefully analysing the evidence. He +declared that the wretches who had come forward to admit their own +disgrace were shameless creatures incapable of one manly thought or one +manly action. They were, without exception, blackmailers. They lived by +luring men to their rooms, generally, on the pretence that a beautiful +girl would be provided for them on their arrival. Once in their clutches, +these victims could only get away by paying a large sum of money unless +they were prepared to face and deny the most disgraceful charges. Innocent +men constantly paid rather than face the odium attached to the breath even +of such scandals. They had, moreover, wives and children, daughters, +maybe or a sister whose honour or name they were obliged to consider. +Therefore they usually submitted to be fleeced and in this way, this +wretched Wood and the abject Atkins had been able to go about the West-end +well-fed and well-dressed. These youths had been introduced to Wilde. They +were pleasant-spoken enough and outwardly decent in their language and +conduct. Wilde was taken in by them and permitted himself to enjoy their +society. He did not defend Wilde for this; he had unquestionably shown +imprudence, but a man of his temperament could not be judged by the +standards of the average individual. These youths had come forward to make +these charges in a conspiracy to ruin his client. + +Was it likely, he asked, that a man of Wilde's cleverness would put +himself so completely in the power of these harpies as he would be if +guilty of only a tenth of the enormities they alleged against him? If +Wilde practised these acts so openly and so flagrantly--if he allowed the +facts to come to the knowledge of so many--then he was a fool who was not +fit to be at large. If the evidence was to be credited, these acts of +gross indecency which culminated in actual crime were done in so open a +manner as to compel the attention of landladies and housemaids. He was +not himself--and he thanked Heaven for it--versed in the acts of those who +committed these crimes against nature. He did not know under what +circumstances they could be practised. But he believed that this was a +vice which, because of the horror and repulsion it excited, because of the +fury it provoked against those guilty of it, was conducted with the utmost +possible secrecy. He respectfully submitted that no jury could find a man +guilty on the evidence of these tainted witnesses. + +Take the testimony, he said, of Atkins. This young man had denied that he +had ever been charged at a police station with alleging blackmail. Yet he +was able to prove that he had grossly perjured himself in this and other +directions. That was a sample of the evidence and Atkins was a type of the +witnesses. + +The only one of these youths who had ever attempted to get a decent living +or who was not an experienced blackmailer was Mavor, and he had denied +that Wilde had ever been guilty of any impropriety with him. + +The prosecution had sought to make capital out of two letters written by +Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas. He pointed out a fact which was of +considerable importance, namely, that Wilde had produced one of these +letters himself. Was that the act of a man who had reason to fear the +contents of a letter being known? Wilde never made any secret of visiting +Taylor's rooms. He found there society which afforded him variety and +change. Wilde made no secret of giving dinners to some of the witnesses. +He thought that they were poorly off and that a good dinner at a +restaurant did not often come their way. On only one occasion did he hire +a private room. The dinners were perfectly open and above-board. Wilde was +an extraordinary man and he had written letters which might seem +high-flown, extravagant, exaggerated, absurd if they liked; but he was not +afraid or ashamed to produce these letters. The witnesses Charles Parker, +Alfred Wood and Atkins had been proved to have previously been guilty of +blackmailing of this kind and upon their uncorroborated evidence surely +the jury would not convict the prisoner on such terrible charges. + +"Fix your minds," concluded Sir Edward earnestly, "firmly on the tests +that ought to be applied to the evidence as a whole before you can condemn +a fellow-man to a charge like this. Remember all that this charge implied, +of implacable ruin and inevitable disgrace. Then I trust that the result +of your deliberations will be to gratify those thousand hopes that are +waiting upon your verdict. I trust that verdict will clear from this +fearful imputation one of the most accomplished and renowned +men-of-letters of to-day." + +At the end of this peroration, there was some slight applause at the back +of the court, but it was hushed almost at once. Wilde had paid great +attention to the speech on his behalf and on one or two occasions had +pressed his hands to his eyes as if expressing some not unnatural emotion. +The speech concluded, however, he resumed his customary attitude and +awaited with apparent firmness all that might befall. + +Mr. Grain then rose to address the jury on behalf of Taylor. He submitted +that there was really no case against his client. An endeavour had been +made to prove that Taylor was in the habit of introducing to Wilde youths +whom he knew to be amenable to the practices of the latter and that he got +paid for this degrading work. The attempt to establish this disgusting +association between Taylor and Wilde had completely broken down. He was, +it is true, acquainted with Parker, Wood and Atkins. He had seen them +constantly in restaurants and music-halls, and they had at first forced +themselves upon his notice and thus got acquainted with a man whom they +designed for blackmail. All the resources of the Crown had been unable to +produce any corroboration of the charges made by these witnesses. How had +Taylor got his livelihood, it might be asked? He was perfectly prepared to +answer the question. He had been living on an allowance made him by +members of his late father's firm, a firm with which all there present +were familiar. Was it in the least degree likely that such scenes as the +witnesses described, with such apparent candour and such wealth of filthy +detail, could have taken place in Taylor's own apartments? It was +incredible that a man could thus risk almost certain discovery. In +conclusion, he confidently looked for the acquittal of his client, who was +guilty of nothing more than having made imprudent acquaintances and having +trusted too much to the descriptions of themselves given by others. + +Mr. Gill then replied for the prosecution in a closely-reasoned and most +able speech, which occupied two hours in delivery and which created an +enormous impression in the crowded court. He commented at great length +upon the evidence. He contended that in a case of this description +corroboration was of comparatively minor importance, for it was not in the +least likely that acts of the kind alleged would be practised before a +third party who might afterwards swear to the fact. Therefore, when the +witnesses described what had transpired when they and the prisoners were +alone, he did not think that corroboration could possibly be given. There +was not likely to be an eye-witness of the facts. But in respect to many +things he declared the evidence was corroborated. Whatever the character +of these youths might be, they had given evidence as to certain facts and +no cross-examination, however adroit, however vigorous, had shaken their +testimony, or caused them to waver about that which was evidently firmly +implanted in their memories. A man might conceivably come forward and +commit perjury. But these youths were accusing themselves, in accusing +another, of shameful and infamous acts, and this they would hardly do if +it were not the truth. Wilde had made presents to these youths and it was +noticeable that the gifts were invariably made after he had been alone, at +some rooms or other, with one or another of the lads. In the +circumstances, even a silver cigarette-case was corroboration. His learned +friend had protested against any evil construction being placed upon these +gifts and these dinners; but, in the name of common-sense, what other +construction was possible? When they heard of a man like Wilde, +presumably of refined and cultured tastes, who might if he wished, enjoy +the society of the best and most cultivated men and women in London, +accompanying to Nice and other places on the Continent, uninformed, +unintellectual and vulgar, ill-bred youths of the type of Charles Parker, +then, in Heaven's name what were they to think? All those visits, all +those dinners, all those gifts, were corroboration. They served to confirm +the truth of the statements made by the youths who confessed to the +commission of acts for which the things he had quoted were positive and +actual payment. + +In the case of the witness Sidney Mavor, it was clear that Wilde had, in +some way, continued to disgust this youth. Some acts of Wilde, either +towards himself, or towards others, had offended him. Was not the letter +which Mavor had addressed to the prisoner, desiring the cessation of their +friendship, corrobation? + +(At this moment his Lordship interposed, and said that although the +evidence of this witness was clearly of importance, he had denied that he +had been guilty of impropriety, and he did not think the count in +reference to Mavor could stand. After some discussion this count was +struck out of the indictment). + +Before concluding Mr. Gill stated that he had withdrawn the conspiracy +count to prevent any embarrassment to Sir Edward Clarke, who had +complained that he was affected in his defence by the counts being joined. +Mr. Gill said, in conclusion, that it was the duty of the jury to express +their verdict without fear or favour. They owed a duty to Society, however +sorry they might feel themselves at the moral downfall of an eminent man, +to protect Society from such scandals by removing from its heart a sore +which could not fail in time to corrupt and taint it all. + +Mr. Justice Charles then commenced his summing-up. His lordship at the +outset said he thought Mr. Gill had taken a wise course in withdrawing the +conspiracy counts and thus relieving them all of an embarrassing position. +He did not see why the conspiracy counts need have been inserted at all, +and he should direct the jury to return a verdict of acquittal on those +charges as well as upon one other count against Taylor, to which he would +further allude, and upon which no sufficient evidence had been given. + +He, the learned judge, asked the jury to apply their minds solely to the +evidence which had been given. Any pre-conceived notion which they might +have formed from reading about the case he urged them to dismiss from +their minds, and to deal with the case as it had been presented to them by +the witnesses. + +His Lordship went on to ask the jury not to attach too much importance to +the uncorroborated evidence of accomplices in such cases as these. Had +there been no corroboration in this case it would have been his duty to +instruct the jury accordingly; but he was clearly of opinion that there +was corroboration to all the witnesses; not, it is true, the conspiracy +testimony of eye-witnesses, but corroboration of the narrative generally. + +Three of the witnesses, Chas. Parker, Wood and Atkins, were not only +accomplices, but they had been properly described by Sir Edward Clarke as +persons of bad character. Atkins, out of his own mouth, was convicted of +having told the most gross and deliberate falsehoods. The jury knew how +this matter came before them as the outcome of the trial of Lord +Queensberry for alleged libel. + +The learned judge proceeded to outline the features of the Queensberry +trial, commenting most upon what was called the literary part of Wilde's +examination in that case. The judge said that he had not read "Dorian +Gray", but extracts were read at the former trial and the present jury had +a general idea of the story. He did not think they ought to base any +unfavourable inference upon the fact that Wilde was the author of that +work. It would not be fair to do so, for while it was true that there were +many great writers, such for instance as Sir Walter Scott and Charles +Dickens, who never penned an offensive line, there were other great +authors whose pens dealt with subjects not so innocent. + +As for Wilde's aphorisms in the "Chameleon", some were amusing, some were +cynical, and some were, if he might be allowed to say so, simple, but +there was nothing _in per se_, to convict Wilde of indecent practices. +However, the same paper contained a very indecent contribution; "The +Priest and the Acolyte." Mr. Wilde had nothing to do with that. In the +"Chameleon" also appeared two poems by Lord Alfred Douglas, one called "In +Praise of Shame", and the other called "Two Loves." It was said that these +sonnets had an immoral tendency and that Wilde approved them. He was +examined at great length about these sonnets, and was also asked about the +two letters written by him to Lord Alfred Douglas--letters that had been +written before the publication of the above mentioned poems. + +In the previous case Mr. Carson had insisted that these letters were +indecent. On the other hand, Wilde had told them that he was not ashamed +of them, as they were intended in the nature of prose poems and breathed +the pure love of one man for another, such a love as David had for +Jonathan, and such as Plato described as the beginning of wisdom. + +He would next deal with the actual charges, and would first call their +attention to the offence alleged to have been committed with Edward +Shelley at the beginning of 1892. Shelley was undoubtedly in the position +of an accomplice, but his evidence was corroborated. He was not, however, +tainted with the offences with which Parker, Wood and Atkins were +connected. He seemed to be a person of some education and a fondness for +Literature. As to Shelley's visit to the Albemarle Hotel, the jury were +the best judges of the demeanour of the witness. Wilde denied all the +allegations of indecency though he admitted the other parts of the young +man's story. His Lordship called attention to the letters written by +Shelley to Wilde in 1892, 1893 and 1894. It was, he said, a very anxious +part of the jury's task to account for the tone of these letters, and for +Shelley's conduct generally. It became a question as to whether or no his +mind was disordered. He felt bound to say that though there was evidence +of great excitability, to talk of either Shelley or Mavor as an insane +youth was an exaggeration, but it would be for the jury to draw their own +conclusions. + +Passing to the case of Atkins, the judge drew attention to his meeting +with Taylor in November 1892, to the dinner at the Cafe Florence, at which +Wilde, Taylor, Atkins and Lord A. Douglas were present, and to the visit +of Atkins to Paris in company with Wilde. + +After dwelling on the circumstances of that visit, his lordship referred +to Wilde's two visits to Atkins in Osnaburgh Street in December 1893. +Wilde explained the Paris visit by saying that Schwabe had arranged to +take Atkins to Paris, but being unable to leave at the time appointed he +asked Wilde to take charge of the youth, and he did so out of friendship +for Schwabe. Wilde further denied that he was much in Atkins' company when +in Paris. Atkins certainly was an unreliable witness and had obviously +given an incorrect version of his relations with Burton. He told the +grossest falsehoods with regard to their arrest, and was convicted out of +his own mouth when recalled by Sir E. Clarke. It was for the jury to +decide how much of Atkins's evidence they might safely believe. + +Then there were the events described as having occured at the Savoy Hotel +in March 1892. He would ask the jury to be careful in the evidence of the +chamber-maid, Jane Cotter, and the interpretation they put upon it. If her +evidence and that of the Masseur Mijji, were true, then Wilde's evidence +on that part of the case was untrue, and the jury must use their own +discretion. He did not wish to enlarge upon this most unpleasant part of +the whole unpleasant case, but it was necessary to remind the jury as +discreetly as he could that the chamber-maid had objected to making the +bed on several occasions after Wilde and Atkins had been in the bed-room +alone together. There were, she had affirmed, indications on the sheets +that conduct of the grossest kind had been indulged in. He thought it his +duty to remind the jury that there might be an innocent explanation of +these stains, though the evidence of Jane Cotter certainly afforded a kind +of corroboration of these charges and of Atkins's own story. In reference +to the case of Wood, he contrasted Wood's account with that of Wilde. + +It seemed that Lord Alfred Douglas had met Wood at Taylor's rooms. In +response to a telegram from the former, Wood went to the Cafe Royal and +there met Wilde for the first time, Wilde speaking first. On the other +hand, Wilde represented that Wood spoke first. The jury might think that, +in any case, the circumstances of that meeting were remarkable, especially +when taken in conjunction with what followed. There was no doubt that Wood +had fallen into evil courses and he and Allen had extracted the sum of +L300 in blackmail. The interview between Wilde and Wood prior to the +latter's departure for America was remarkable. A sum of money, said to be +L30, was given by Wilde to Wood, and Wood returned some of Wilde's letters +that had somehow come into his possession. Wood, however, kept back one +letter which got into Allen's possession. Wood got L5 more on the +following day, went to America, and while there wrote to Taylor a letter +in which occured the passage. "Tell Oscar if he likes he can send me a +draft for an Easter Egg." It would be for the jury to consider what would +have been the inner meaning of these and other transactions. + +As to the prisoner Taylor, he had, on his own admission, led a life of +idleness, and got through a fortune of L45,000. It was alleged that the +prisoner had virtually turned his apartments into a bagnio or brothel, in +which young men took the place of prostitutes, and that his character in +this regard was well known to those who were secretly given to this +particular vice. One of the offences imputed to Taylor had reference to +Charles Parker, who had spoken of the peculiar arrangement of the rooms. +There were two bedrooms in the inner room with folding doors between and +the windows were heavily draped, so that no one from the opposite houses +could possibly see what was going on inside. Heavy curtains, it was said, +hung before all the doors, so that it could not be possible for an +eave's-dropper to hear what was proceeding inside. There was a curiously +shaped sofa in the sitting-room and the whole aspect of the room +resembled, it was asserted, a fashionable resort for vice. + +Wilde was undoubtedly present at some of the tea parties given there, and +did not profess to be surprised at what he saw there. It had been shown +that both the Parkers went to these rooms, and further, that Charles +Parker had received L30 of the blackmail extorted by Wood and Allen. + +Charles Parker's evidence was therefore doubly-tainted like that of Wood +and Atkins, but his evidence was to some extent confirmed by that of his +brother William. Some parts of Charles Parker's evidence were also +corroborated by other witnesses, as for instance, by Marjorie Bancroft, +who swore that she saw Wilde visit Charles Parker's rooms in Park Walk. + +It was admitted that this Parker visited Wilde at St. James' Place. +Charles Parker had been arrested with Taylor in the Fitzroy Square raid +and this went to show that they were in the habit of associating with +those suspected of offences of the kind alleged. Both, however, were on +that occasion discharged and Parker enlisted in the army. It was quite +manifest that Charles Parker was of a low class of morality. + +That concluded the various charges made in this case and he had very +little to add. Mavor's evidence had little or no value with reference to +the issues now before the jury, except as showing how he became acquainted +with Wilde and Taylor. So far as it went, Mavor's evidence was rather in +favour of Wilde than otherwise and nothing indecent had been proved +against that witness. + +In conclusion, his lordship submitted the case to the jury in the +confident hope that they would do justice to themselves on the one hand, +and to the two defendants on the other. The learned judge concluded by +further directing the jury as to the issues, and asked them to form their +opinions on the evidence, and to give the case their careful +consideration. + +The judge left the following questions to the jury:-- + +FIRST, whether Wilde committed certain offences with Shelley, Wood, with a +person or persons unknown at the Savoy Hotel, or with Charles Parker? + +SECONDLY, whether Taylor procured the commission of those acts or any of +them? + +THIRDLY, did Wilde or Taylor, or either of them attempt to get Atkins to +commit certain offences with Wilde, and FOURTHLY, did Taylor commit +certain acts with either Charles Parker or Wood? + +The Jury retired at 1.35, the summing-up of the judge having taken exactly +three hours. + +At three o'clock a communication was brought from the jury, and conveyed +by the Clerk of arraigns to the Judge, and shortly afterwards the jury had +luncheon taken in to them. + +At 4.15 the judge sent for the Clerk of arraigns, Mr. Avory, who proceeded +to his lordship's private room. + +Subsequently, Mr. Avory went to the jury, apparently with a communication +from the judge and returned in a few minutes to the judge's private room. + +Shortly before five o'clock the usher brought a telegram from one of the +jurors, and after it had been shown to the clerk of arraigns it was +allowed to be despatched. + +Eventually the jury returned into court at a quarter past five o'clock. + + +THE VERDICT + +THE JUDGE.--"I have received a communication from you to the effect that +you are unable to arrive at an agreement. Now, is there anything you +desire to ask me in reference to the case?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"I have put that question to my fellow-jurymen, my lord, and +I do not think there is any doubt that we cannot agree upon three of the +questions." + +THE JUDGE.--"I find from the entry which you have written against the +various subdivisions of No. 1 that you cannot agree as to any of those +subdivisions?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"That is so, my lord." + +THE JUDGE.--"Is there no prospect of an agreement if you retire to your +room?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"I fear not." + +THE JUDGE.--"You have not been inconvenienced; I ordered what you +required, and there is no prospect that, with a little more deliberation, +you may come to an agreement as to some of them?" + +THE FOREMAN.--"My fellow-jurymen say there is no possibility." + +THE JUDGE.--"I am very unwilling to prejudice your deliberations, and I +have no doubt that you have done your best to arrive at an agreement. On +the other hand I would point out to you that the inconveniences of a new +trial are very great. If you thought that by deliberating a reasonable +time you could arrive at a conclusion upon any of the questions I have +asked you, I would ask you to do so." + +THE FOREMAN.--"We considered the matter before coming into court and I do +not think there is any chance of agreement. We have considered it again +and again." + +THE JUDGE.--"If you tell me that, I do not think I am justified in +detaining you any longer." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"I wish to ask, my lord, that a verdict may be given +in the conspiracy counts." + +Mr. GILL.--"I wish to oppose that." + +THE JUDGE.--"I directed the acquittal of the prisoners on the conspiracy +counts this morning. I thought that was the right course to adopt, and the +same remark might be made with regard to the two counts in which Taylor +was charged with improper conduct towards Wood and Parker. It was +unfortunate that the real and material questions which had occupied the +jury's attention for such a length of time were matters upon which the +jury were unable to agree. Upon these matters and upon the counts which +were concerned with them, I must discharge the jury." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"I wish to apply for bail, then for M. Wilde." + +Mr. HALL.--"And I make the same application on behalf of Taylor." + +THE JUDGE.--"I don't feel able to accede to the applications." + +Sir EDWARD.--"I shall probably renew the application, my lord." + +THE JUDGE.--"That would be to a judge in chambers." + +Mr. GILL.--"The case will assuredly be tried again and probably it will go +to the next Sessions." + +The two prisoners, who had listened to all this very attentively, were +then conducted from the dock. Wilde had listened to the foreman of the +jury's statement without any show of feeling. + +It was stated that the failure of the jury to agree upon a verdict was +owing to three out of the twelve being unable upon the evidence placed +before them to arrive at any other conclusion than that of "Not Guilty." + +The following day Mr. Baron Pollock decided that Oscar Wilde should be +allowed out on bail in his own recognisances of L2,500 and two sureties of +L1,250 each. Wilde was brought up at Bow Street next day and the sureties +attended. After a further application, bail in his case was granted and he +went out of prison, for the present a free man, but with NEMESIS, in the +shape of the second trial, awaiting him! + + * * * * * + +The second trial of Oscar Wilde, with its dramatic finale, for no one +thought much of its consequences to Alfred Taylor, came on in the third +week of May at the Old Bailey. + +It was agreed to take the cases of the prisoners separately, Taylor's +first. Sir Edward Clarke, who still represented Wilde, stated that he +should make an application at the end of Taylor's trial that Wilde's case +should stand over till the next sessions. His lordship said that +application had better be postponed till the end of the first trial, +significantly adding, "If there should be an acquittal, so much the better +for the other prisoner." Meanwhile Wilde was to be released on bail. + +Sir Francis Lockwood, who now represented the prosecution, then went over +all the details of the intimacy of the Parkers and Wood with Taylor and +Wilde and called Charles Parker, who repeated his former evidence, +including a very serious allegation against the prisoner. He stated in so +many words that Taylor had kept him at his rooms for a whole week during +which time they rarely went out, and had repeatedly committed sodomy with +him. The witness unblushingly asserted that they slept together and that +Taylor called him "Darling" and referred to him as "my little Wife." When +he left Taylor's rooms the latter paid him some money, said he should +never want for cash and that he would introduce him to men "prepared to +pay for that kind of thing." Cross-examined; Charles Parker admitted that +he had previously been guilty of this offence, but had determined never to +submit to such treatment again. Taylor over-persuaded him. He was nearly +drunk and incapable, the first time, of making a moral resistance. + +Alfred Wood also described his acquaintance with Taylor and his visits to +what he termed the "snuggery" at Little College Street, but which quite as +appropriately could have been designed by a name which would have the +additional merit of strictly describing it and of rhyming with it at the +same time! It was not at all clear, however, that Taylor was responsible, +at least directly, for the introduction of Alfred Wood to Wilde as the +indictment suggested. This was effected by a third person, whose name had +not as yet been introduced into the case. + +Mrs. Grant, the landlady at 13 Little College Street, described Taylor's +rooms. She was not aware, she said, that they were put to an improper use, +but she had remarked to her husband the care taken that whatever went on +there should be hidden from the eyes and ears of others. Young men used to +come there and remain some time with Taylor, and Wilde was a frequent +visitor. Taylor provided much of his own bed-linen and she noticed that +the pillows had lace and were generally elaborate and costly. + +The prosecution next called a new witness, Emily Becca, chambermaid at +the Savoy Hotel, who stated that she had complained to the management of +the state in which she found the bed-linen and the utensils of the room. +When pressed for particulars the witness hesitated, and after stating that +she refused to make the bed or empty the "chamber," she said she handed in +her notice but was prevailed upon to withdraw it. Then by a series of +adroit questions Counsel obtained the particulars. The bed-linen was +stained. The colour was brown. The towels were similarly discoloured. One +of the pillows was marked with face-powder. There was excrement in one of +the utensils in the bedroom. Wilde had handed her half a sovereign but +when she saw the state of the room after he had gone she gave the coin to +the management. + +Evidence with regard to Wilde's rooms at St. James' Place was given by +Thomas Price, who was able to identify Taylor as one of the callers. + +Mrs. Gray--no relation, haply, to the notorious "Dorian"--of 3 Chapel +Street, Chelsea, deposed that Taylor stayed at her house from August 1893 +to the end of that year. Formal and minor items of evidence concluded the +case for the prosecution of Taylor, and Mr. Grain proceeded to open his +defence by calling the prisoner into the witness-box. Mr. Grain examined +him. + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What is your age?" + +WITNESS.--"I am thirty-three." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You are the son of the late Henry Taylor, who was a +manufacturer of an article of food in large demand?" + +WITNESS.--"I am." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You were at Marlborough School?" + +WITNESS.--"Till I was seventeen." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You inherited L45,000 I believe?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"And spent it?" + +WITNESS.--"It went." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Since then you have had no occupation?" + +WITNESS.--"I have lived upon an allowance made me." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"Is there any truth in the evidence of Charles Parker that you +misconducted yourself with him." + +WITNESS.--"Not the slightest." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"What rooms had you at Little College Street?" + +WITNESS.--"One bedroom, but it was sub-divided and I believe there was +generally a bed in each division." + +Mr. GRAIN.--"You had a good many visitors?" + +WITNESS.--"Oh, yes." + +Sir FRANK LOCKWOOD.--"Did Charles Mavor stay with you then?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, about a week." + +Sir FRANK.--"When?" + +WITNESS.--"When I first went there, in 1892." + +Sir FRANK.--"What is his age?" + +WITNESS.--"He is now 26 or 27." + +Sir FRANK.--"Do you remember going through a form of marriage with Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"No, never." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you tell Parker you did?" + +WITNESS.--"Nothing of the kind." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you not place a wedding-ring on his finger and go to bed +with him that night as though he were your lawful wife?" + +WITNESS.--"It is all false. I deny it all." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you ever sleep with Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"I think I did the first night--after, he had a separate bed." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you induce Mavor to attire himself as a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"Certainly I did not." + +Sir FRANK.--"But there were articles of women's dress at your rooms?" + +WITNESS.--"No. There was a fancy dress for a female, a theatrical +costume." + +Sir FRANK.--"Was it made for a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"I think so." + +Sir FRANK.--"Perhaps you wore it?" + +WITNESS.--"I put it on once by way of a lark." + +Sir FRANK.--"On no other occasion?" + +WITNESS.--"I wore it once, too, at a fancy dress ball." + +Sir FRANK.--"I suggest that you often dressed as a woman?" + +WITNESS.--"No." + +Sir FRANK.--"You wore, and caused Mavor afterwards, to wear lace +drawers--a woman's garment--with the dress?" + +WITNESS.--"I wore knicker-bockers and stockings when I wore it at the +fancy dress ball." + +Sir FRANK.--"And a woman's wig, which afterwards did for Mavor?" + +WITNESS.--"No, the wig was made for me. I was going to a fancy-ball as +'Dick Whittington'." + +Sir FRANK.--"Who introduced you to the Parkers?" + +WITNESS.--"A friend named Harrington at the St. James's Restaurant." + +Sir FRANK.--"You invited them to your rooms?" + +WITNESS.--"I did." + +Sir FRANK.--"Why?" + +WITNESS.--"I found them very nice." + +Sir FRANK.--"You were acquainted with a young fellow named Mason?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir FRANK.--"He visited you?" + +WITNESS.--"Two or three times only, I think." + +Sir FRANK.--"Did you induce him to commit a filthy act with you?" + +WITNESS.--"Never." + +Sir FRANK.--"He has written you letters?" + +WITNESS.--"That's very likely." + +Sir FRANK.--"The Solicitor General proposes to read one." + +The letter was as follows:-- + + "Dear Alf, + + Let me have some money as soon as you can. I would not ask you for it + if I could get any myself. You know the business is not so easy. There + is a lot of trouble attached to it. + + Come home soon, dear, and let us go out together sometimes. Have very + little news. Going to a dinner on Monday and a theatre to-night. + + With much love, + Yours always, + CHARLES." + +The SOLICITOR GENERAL.--(Severely) "I ask you, Taylor, for an explanation, +for it requires one, of the use of the words "come home soon, dear", as +between two men." + +TAYLOR.--(Laughing nervously) "I do not see anything in it." + +The SOLICITOR GENERAL.--"Nothing in it?" + +WITNESS.--"Well, I am not responsible for the expressions of another." + +The SOLICITOR GENERAL.--"You allowed yourself to be addressed in this +strain?" + +WITNESS.--"It's the way you read it." + +The summing-up followed and after a consultation of three-quarters of an +hour, the jury returned a verdict against Taylor on the indecency counts, +not agreeing, however, as to the charges of procuration. Sentence was +postponed, pending the result of the trial of Oscar Wilde, which began +next day. + + * * * * * + +Wilde had meanwhile been at large on bail. The one charge of "conspiring +with Alfred Taylor to procure" had been dropped, and the indictment of +misdemeanour alleged that the prisoner unlawfully committed various acts +with Charles Parker, Alfred Wood, Edward Shelley, and certain persons +unknown. + +The plea of "Not Guilty" was recorded. + +The case for the prosecution was opened by calling Edward Shelley, the +young man who had been employed by the Vigo Street publishers. Shelley +repeated the story of the beginning and the progress of his intimacy with +Wilde. It began, he said, in 1891; in March 1893, they quarrelled. The +witness had been subjected by the prisoner to attempts at improper +conduct. Oscar had, to be plain, on several occasions, placed his hand on +the private parts of the witness and sought to put his, witness's, hand in +the same indelicate position as regards Wilde's own person. Witness +resented these acts at the time; had told Wilde not to be 'a beast', and +the latter expressed his sorrow. "But I am so fond of you, Edward," he had +said. + +The Witness wrote Wilde that he would not see him again. He spoke in the +letter of these and other acts of impropriety and made use of the +expression, "I was entrapped." Witness explained to the court, "He knew I +admired him very much and he took advantage of me--of my admiration +and--well, I won't say innocence. I don't know what to call it." + +These are some of the letters which Shelley wrote to Wilde: + + October 27, 1892. + + Oscar: Will you be at home on Sunday evening next? I am most anxious + to see you. I would have called this evening, but I am suffering from + nervousness, the result of insomnia and am obliged to remain at home. + + I have longed to see you all through the week. I have much to tell + you. Do not think me forgetful in not coming before, because I shall + never forget your kindness, and am conscious that I can never + sufficiently express my thankfulness. + +Another letter ran: + + October 25, 1894. + + Oscar: I want to go away and rest somewhere--I think in Cornwall for + two weeks. I am determined to live a truly Christian life, and I + accept poverty as part of my religion, but I must have health. I have + so much to do for my mother. + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"Now, Mr. Shelley, do you mean to tell the jury that +having in your mind, that this man had behaved disgracefully towards you, +you wrote that letter of October 27, 1892?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. Because after those few occurrences he treated me very +well. He seemed really sorry for what he had done." + +Sir EDWARD.--"He introduced you to his home?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, to his wife. I dined with them and he seemed to take a +real interest in me." + +Sir EDWARD.--"You have met Lord Alfred Douglas?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, at his rooms at the 'Varsity'." + +Sir EDWARD.--"He was kind to you?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes. He gave me a suit of clothes while I was there." + +Sir EDWARD.--"And you found two letters in one of the pockets?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +Sir EDWARD.--"Who from?" + +WITNESS.--"From Mr. Wilde to Lord Alfred." + +Sir EDWARD.--"How did they begin?" + +WITNESS.--"One was addressed, "Dear Alfred", and the other to "Dear +Bogie." + +SOLICITOR-GENERAL.--"When did you first meet Lord Alfred?" + +WITNESS.--"At Taylor's rooms in Little College Street." + +SOLICITOR-GENERAL.--"Then you visited him at the University?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes." + +The Solicitor-General then proceeded to ask the witness as to the terms +upon which Wilde and Lord Alfred appeared to be; but this has been a +prohibited topic from first to last and was now successfully objected to. + +Charles Parker was called and he repeated his evidence at great length, +relating the most disgusting facts in a perfectly serene manner. He said +that Wilde invariably began his "campaign"--before arriving at the final +nameless act--with indecencies. He used to require the witness to do what +is vulgarly known as "tossing him off", explained Parker quite unabashed, +"and he would often do the same to me. He suggested two or three times +that I should permit him to insert "it" in my mouth, but I never allowed +that." He gave other details equally shocking. + +A few other witnesses were examined, and the rest of the day having been +spent in the reading over of the evidence, Sir Edward Clarke submitted +that in respect of certain counts of the indictment there was no evidence +to go to the jury. + +The Solicitor-General submitted that there was ample evidence to go to the +jury, who alone could decide as to whether or not it was worthy of belief. + +The Judge said he thought the point in respect to the Savoy Hotel incident +was just on the line, but he thought that the wiser and safer course was +to allow the count in respect of this matter to go to the jury. At the +same time, he felt justified, if the occasion should arise, in reserving +the point for the Court of Appeal. He was inclined to think it was a +matter, the responsibility of deciding which, rested with the jury. + +Sir Edward Clarke submitted next that there was no corroboration of the +evidence of this witness. The letters of Shelley pointed to the inference +that the latter might have been the victim of delusions, and, judging from +his conduct in the witness-box, he appeared to have a peculiar sort of +exaltation in and for himself. + +The Solicitor-General maintained that Shelley's evidence was corroborated +as far as it could possibly be. Of course, in a case of this kind there +was an enormous difficulty in producing corroboration of eye-witnesses to +the actual commission of the alleged act. + +The judge held that Shelley must be treated on the footing of an +accomplice. He adhered, after a most careful consideration of the point, +to his former view, that there was no corroboration of the nature required +by the Act to warrant conviction, and therefore he felt justified in +withdrawing that count from the jury. + +Sir Edward Clarke made the same submission in the case of Wood. + +The Solicitor General protested against any decision being given on these +questions other than by a verdict of the jury. In his opinion the case of +the man Wood could not be withheld from the jury. He submitted that there +was every element of strong corroboration of Wood's story, having regard +especially to the strange and suspicious circumstances under which Wilde +and Wood became acquainted. + +Sir Edward Clarke quoted from the summing-up of Mr. Justice Charles on the +last trial relative to the directions which he gave the jury in the law +respecting the corroboration of the evidence of an accomplice. + +The judge was of opinion that the count affecting Wood ought to go to the +jury, and he gave reasons why it ought not to be withheld. + +Sir Edward Clarke after a private passage of arms with the +Solicitor-General in respect to the need for corroborative evidence, then +began a brief, but able appeal to the jury on behalf of his client, after +which Wilde entered the witness-box. He formally denied the allegations +against him. Sir Frank Lockwood, in cross-examination: "Now, Mr. Wilde, I +should like you to tell me where Lord A. Douglas is now?" + +WITNESS.--"He is in Paris, at the Hotel des Deux Mondes." + +Sir FRANK.--"How long has he been there?" + +WITNESS.--"Three weeks." + +Sir FRANK.--"Have you been in communication with him?" + +WITNESS.--"Certainly. These charges are founded on sand. Our friendship is +founded on a rock. There has been no need to cancel our acquaintance." + +Sir FRANK.--"Was Lord Alfred in London at the time of the trial of the +Marquis of Queensberry?" + +WITNESS.--"Yes, for about three weeks. He went abroad at my request before +the first trial on these counts came on." + +Sir FRANK.--"May we take it that the two letters from you to him were +samples of the kind you wrote him?" + +WITNESS.--"No. They were exceptional letters born of the two exceptional +letters he sent to me. It is possible, I assure you, to express poetry in +prose." + +Sir FRANK.--"I will read one of these prose-poem letters. Do you think +this line is decent, addressed to a young man? "Your rose-red lips which +are made for the music of song and the madness of kissing." + +WITNESS.--"It was like a sonnet of Shakespeare. It was a fantastic, +extravagant way of writing to a young man. It does not seem to be a +question of whether it is proper or not." + +Sir FRANK.--"I used the word decent." + +WITNESS.--"Decent, oh yes." + +Sir FRANK.--"Do you think you understand the word, Sir?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not see anything indecent in it, it was an attempt to +address in beautiful phraseology a young man who had much culture and +charm." + +Sir FRANK.--"How many times have you been in the College Street +'snuggery' of the man Taylor?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not think more than five or six times." + +Sir FRANK.--"Who did you meet there?" + +WITNESS.--"Sidney Mavor and Schwabe--I cannot remember any others. I have +not been there since I met Wood there." + +Sir FRANK.--"With regard to the Savoy Hotel Witnesses?" + +WITNESS.--"Their evidence is quite untrue." + +Sir FRANK.--"You deny that the bed-linen was marked in the way described?" + +WITNESS.--"I do not examine bed-linen when I arise. I am not a housemaid." + +Sir FRANK.--"Were the stains there, Sir?" + +WITNESS.--"If they were there, they were not caused in the way the +Prosecution most filthily suggests." + +Sir Edward Clarke, after a slight "breeze" with the Solicitor-General as +to the right to the last word to the jury, then addressed that devoted +band of men for the third time, and asked for the acquittal of his client +on all the counts. + +Sir Frank Lockwood also addressed the jury and the Court then adjoined. + +Next day the Solicitor-General, resuming his speech on behalf of the Crown +dealt in details with the arguments of Sir E. Clarke in defence of Wilde, +and commented in strong terms on observations that he made respecting the +lofty situation of Wilde, with his literary accomplishments, for the +purpose of influencing the judgment of the young. He said that the jury +ought to discard absolutely any such appeal, to apply simply their +common-sense to the testimony; and to form a conclusion on the evidence, +which he submitted fully established the charges. + +He was commenting on another branch of the case, when Sir E. Clarke +interposed on the ground that the learned Solicitor-General was alluding +to incidents connected with another trial. The Solicitor-General +maintained that he was strictly within his rights, and the Judge held that +the latter was entitled to make the comments objected to. "My learned +friend does not appear to have gained a great deal by his superfluity of +interruption", remarked the Solicitor-General suavely, and the Court +laughed loudly. The Judge said that this sort of thing was most offensive +to him. It was painful enough to have to try such a case and keep the +scales of justice evenly balanced without the Court being pestered with +meaningless laughter and applause. If such conduct were repeated he would +have the Court cleared. + +The Solicitor-General then criticised the answers given by Wilde to the +charges, which explanations he submitted, were not worthy of belief. The +jury could not fail to put the interpretation on the conduct of the +accused that he was a guilty man and they ought to say so by their +verdict. + +The Judge, in summing-up, referred to the difficulties of the case in some +of its features. He regretted, that if the conspiracy counts were +unnecessary, or could not be established, they should have been placed in +the indictment. The jury must not surrender their own independent judgment +in dealing with the facts and ought to discard everything which was not +relevant to the issue before them, or did not assist their judgment. + +He did not desire to comment more than he could help about Lord Alfred +Douglas or the Marquis of Queensberry, but the whole of this lamentable +enquiry arose through the defendant's association with Lord A. Douglas. + +He did not think that the action of the Marquis of Queensberry in leaving +the card at the defendant's club, whatever motives he had, was that of a +gentleman. The jury were entitled to consider that these alleged acts +happened some years ago. They ought to be the best judges as to the +testimony of the witnesses and whether it was worthy of belief. + +The letters written by the accused to Lord A. Douglas were undoubtedly +open to suspicion, and they had an important bearing on Wood's evidence. +There was no corroboration of Wood as to the visit to Tite Street, and if +his story had been true, he thought that some corroboration might have +been obtained. Wood belonged to the vilest class of person which Society +was pestered with, and the jury ought not to believe his story unless +satisfactorily corroborated. + +Their decision must turn on the character of the first introduction of +Wilde to Wood. Did they believe that Wilde was actuated by charitable +motives or by improper motives? + +The foreman of the jury, interposing at this stage, asked whether a +warrant had been issued for the arrest of Lord Alfred Douglas and if not, +whether it was intended to issue one. + +The Judge said he could not tell, but he thought not. It was a matter they +could not now discuss. The granting of a warrant depended not upon the +inferences to be drawn from the letters referred to in the case, but on +the production of evidence of specific acts. There was a disadvantage in +speculating on this question. They must deal with the evidence before them +and with that alone. The foreman said, "If we are to deduce from the +letters it applies to Lord Alfred Douglas equally as to the defendant." + +THE JUDGE.--"In regard to the question as to the absence of Lord A. +Douglas, I warn you not to be influenced by any consideration of the kind. +All that they knew was that Lord A. Douglas went to Paris shortly after +the last trial and had remained there since. He felt sure that if the +circumstances justified it, the necessary proceedings could be taken." + +His lordship dealt with each of the charges, and the evidence in support +of them, and he then, after thanking the jury for the patient manner in +which they had attended to the case, left the issues in their hands. + +The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three o'clock and +at half past five they returned into Court. + + +_THE VERDICT_ + +Amidst breathless excitement, the Foreman, in answer to the usual formal +questions, announced the verdict, "Guilty." + +Sir EDWARD CLARKE.--"I apply, my lord, for a postponement of sentence." + +The JUDGE.--"I must certainly refuse that request. I can only characterise +the offences as the worst that have ever come under my notice. I have, +however, no wish to add to the pain that must be felt by the defendants. I +sentence both Wilde and Taylor to two years imprisonment with hard +labour." + +The sentence was met with some cries of "shame", "a scandalous verdict", +"unjust," by certain persons in Court. The two prisoners appeared dazed +and Wilde especially seemed ready to faint as he was hurried out of sight +to the cells. + + * * * * * + +Thus perished by his own act a man who might have made a lasting mark in +British Literature and secured for himself no mean place in the annals of +his time. + +He forfeited, in the pursuit of forbidden pleasures, if pleasures they +can be called, all and everything that made life dear. + +He entered upon his incarceration bankrupt in reputation, in friends, in +pocket, and had not even left to him the poor shreds of his own +self-esteem. + +He went into gaol, knowing that if he emerged alive, the darkness would +swallow him up and that his world--the spheres which had delighted to +honour him--would know him no more. + +He had covered his name with infamy and sank his own celebrity in a slough +of slime and filth. + +He would die to leave behind him what?--the name of a man who was +absolutely governed by his own vices and to whom no act of immorality was +too foul or horrible. + +Oscar Wilde emerged from prison in every way a broken man. The wonderful +descriptive force of the _Ballad of Reading Gaol_; the perfect, torturing +self-analysis of _De Profundis_ speak eloquently of powers unimpaired; but +they were the swan-songs of a once great mind. All his abilities had fled. +He seemed unable to concentrate his mind upon anything. He took up certain +subjects, played with them, and wearied of them in a day. French authors +did not ostracise the erratic English genius when he hid himself amongst +them and they honestly endeavoured to find him employment. But his +faculties had been blunted by the horrors of prison life. His epigrams had +lost their edge. His aphorisms were trite and aimless. He abandoned every +subject he took up, in despair. His mind died before his body. He suffered +from a complete mental atrophy. A nightingale cannot sing in a cage. A +genius cannot flourish in a prison. He died in two years and is now--the +merest memory! Let us remember this of him: if he sinned much, he suffered +much. + +Peace to his ashes! + + + + + HIS LAST BOOK + AND HIS LAST YEARS IN PARIS + _By_ "_A_" + (LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS?) + + +The following three articles, two of them from the "St. James's Gazette" +and one from the "Motorist", are marked with so much good sense and +dissipate so many errors touching Oscar Wilde's last Years in Paris that +the publisher deemed it a duty to reproduce them here as a permanent +answer to the wild legends circulated about the subject of this book. + + + + +OSCAR WILDE + +His last Book and his last Years + + +_The publication of Oscar Wilde's last book, "De Profundis," has revived +interest in the closing scenes of his life, and we to-day print the first +of two articles dealing with his last years in Paris from a source which +puts their authenticity beyond question._ + +_The one question which inevitably suggested itself to the reader of "De +Profundis," was, "What was the effect of his prison reflections on his +subsequent life?" The book is full not only of frank admissions of the +error of his ways, but of projects for his future activity. "I hope," he +wrote, in reply to some criticisms on the relations of art and morals, "to +live long enough to produce work of such a character that I shall be able +at the end of my days to say, "Yes, that is just where the artistic life +leads a man!" He mentions in particular two subjects on which he proposed +to write, "Christ as the Precursor of the Romantic Movement in Life" and +"The Artistic Life Considered in its Relation to Conduct." These +resolutions were never carried out, for reasons some of which the writer +of the following article indicates._ + +_Oscar Wilde was released from prison in May, 1897. He records in his +letters the joy of the thought that at that time "both the lilac and the +laburnum will be blooming in the gardens." The closing sentences of the +book may be recalled: "Society, as we have constituted it, will have no +place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on +unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and +secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the +night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without +stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me +to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs +make me whole."_ + +_He died in November, 1900, three years and a half after his release from +Reading Gaol._ + + * * * * * + +Monsieur Joseph Renaud, whose translation of Oscar Wilde's "Intentions" +has just appeared in Paris, has given a good example of how history is +made in his preface to that work. He recounts an obviously imaginary +meeting between himself and Oscar Wilde in a bar on the Boulevard des +Italiens. He concludes the episode, such as it is, with these words: +"Nothing remained of him but his musical voice and his large blue +childlike eyes." Oscar Wilde's eyes were curious--long, narrow, and green. +Anything less childlike it would be hard to imagine. To the physiognomist +they were his most remarkable feature, and redeemed his face from the +heaviness that in other respects characterised it. So much for M. Joseph +Renaud's powers of observation. + +The complacent unanimity with which the chroniclers of Oscar Wilde's last +years in Paris have accepted and spread the "legend" of his life in that +city is remarkable, and would be exasperating considering its utter +falsity to anyone who was not aware of their incompetence to deal with the +subject. Scarcely one of his self-constituted biographers had more than +the very slightest acquaintance with him, and their records and +impressions of him are chiefly made up of stale gossip and secondhand +anecdotes. The stories of his supposed privations, his frequent inability +to obtain a square meal, his lonely and tragic death in a sordid lodging, +and his cheap funeral are all grotesquely false. + +True, Oscar Wilde, who for several years before his conviction had been +making at least L5,000 a year, found it very hard to live on his rather +precarious income after he came out of prison; he was often very "hard +up," and often did not know where to turn for a coin, but I will +undertake to prove to anyone whom it may concern that from the day he left +prison till the day of his death his income averaged at least L400 a year. +He had, moreover, far too many devoted friends in Paris ever to be in need +of a meal provided he would take the trouble to walk a few hundred yards +or take a cab to one of half a dozen houses. His death certainly was +tragic--deaths are apt to be tragic--but he was surrounded by friends when +he died, and his funeral was not cheap; I happen to have paid for it in +conjunction with another friend of his, so I ought to know. + +He did not become a Roman Catholic before he died. He was, at the instance +of a great friend of his, himself a devout Catholic, "received into the +Church" a few hours before he died; but he had then been unconscious for +many hours, and he died without ever having any idea of the liberty that +had been taken with his unconscious body. Whether he would have approved +or not of the step taken by his friend is a matter on which I should not +like to express a too positive opinion, but it is certain that it would +not do him any harm, and, apart from all questions of religion and +sentiment, it facilitated the arrangements which had to be made for his +interment in a Catholic country, in view of the fact that no member of +his family took any steps to claim his body or arrange for his funeral. + +Having disposed of certain false impressions in regard to various facts of +his life and death in Paris, I may turn to what are less easily controlled +and examined theories as to that life. Without wishing to be paradoxical, +or harshly destructive of the carefully cherished sentiment of poetic +justice so dear to the British mind (and the French mind, too, for that +matter), I give it as my firm opinion that Oscar Wilde was, on the whole, +fairly happy during the last years of his life. He had an extraordinarily +buoyant and happy temperament, a splendid sense of humour, and an +unrivalled faculty for enjoyment of the present. Of course, he had his bad +moments, moments of depression and sense of loss and defeat, but they were +not of long duration. It was part of his pose to luxuriate a little in the +details of his tragic circumstances. He harrowed the feelings of many of +those whom he came across; words of woe poured from his lips; he painted +an image of himself, destitute, abandoned, starving even (I have heard him +use the word after a very good dinner at Paillard's); as he proceeded he +was caught by the pathos of his own words, his beautiful voice trembled +with emotion, his eyes swam with tears; and then, suddenly, by a swift, +indescribably brilliant, whimsical touch, a swallow-wing flash on the +waters of eloquence, the tone changed and rippled with laughter, bringing +with it his audience, relieved, delighted, and bubbling into +uncontrollable merriment. + +He never lost his marvellous gift of talking; after he came out of prison +he talked better than before. Everyone who knew him really before and +after his imprisonment is agreed about that. His conversation was richer, +more human, and generally on a higher intellectual level. In French he +talked as well as in English; to my own English ear his French used to +seem rather laboured and his accent too marked, but I am assured by +Frenchmen who heard him talk that such was not the effect produced on +them. + +He explained to me his inability to write, by saying that when he sat down +to write he always inevitably began to think of his past life, and that +this made him miserable and upset his spirits. As long as he talked and +sat in cafes and "watched life," as his phrase was, he was happy, and he +had the luck to be a good sleeper, so that only the silence and +self-communing necessary to literary work brought him visions of his +terrible sufferings in the past and made his old wounds bleed again. My +own theory as to his literary sterility at this period is that he was +essentially an interpreter of life, and that his existence in Paris was +too narrow and too limited to stir him to creation. At his best he +reflected life in a magic mirror, but the little corner of life he saw in +Paris was not worth reflecting. If he could have been provided with a +brilliant "entourage" of sympathetic listeners as of old and taken through +a gay season in London, he would have begun to write again. Curiously +enough, society was the breath of life to him, and what he felt more than +anything else in his "St. Helena" in Paris, as he often told me, was the +absence of the smart and pretty women who in the old days sat at his feet! + +A. + + + + +OSCAR WILDE'S + +LAST YEARS IN PARIS.--II + + +The French possess the faculty, very rare in England, of differentiating +between a man and his work. They are utterly incapable of judging literary +work by the moral character of its author. I have never yet met a +Frenchman who was able to comprehend the attitude of the English public +towards Oscar Wilde after his release from prison. They were completely +mystified by it. An eminent French man-of-letters said to me one day: "You +have a man of genius, he commits crimes, you put him in prison, you +destroy his whole life, you take away his fortune, you ruin his health, +you kill his mother, his wife, and his brother (_sic_), you refuse to +speak to him, you exile him from your country. That is very severe. In +France we should never so treat a man of genius, but _enfin ca peut se +comprendre_. But not content with that, you taboo his books and his plays, +which before you enjoyed and admired, and _pour comble de tout_ you are +very angry if he goes into a restaurant and orders himself some dinner. +_Il faut pourtant qu'il mange ce pauvre homme!_" If I had been +representing the British public in an official capacity I should have +probably given expression to its views and furnished a sufficient repartee +to my voluble French friend by replying: "_Je n'en vois pas la +necessite_." + +Fortunately for Oscar Wilde, the French took another view of the attitude +to adopt towards a man who has offended against society, and who has been +punished for it. Never by a word or a hint did they show that they +remembered that offence, which, in their view, had been atoned for and +wiped out. Oscar Wilde remained for them always _un grand homme, un +maitre_, a distinguished man, to be treated with deference and respect +and, because he had suffered much, with sympathy. It says a great deal for +the innate courtesy and chivalry of the French character that a man in +Oscar Wilde's position, as well known by sight, as he once remarked to me, +as the Eiffel Tower, should have been able to go freely about in theatres, +restaurants, and cafes without encountering any kind of hostility or even +impertinent curiosity. + +It was this benevolent attitude of Paris towards him that enabled him to +live and, in a fashion, to enjoy life. His audience was sadly reduced and +precarious, and except on some few occasions it was of inferior +intellectual calibre; but still he had an audience, and an audience to him +was everything. Nor was he altogether deprived of the society of men of +his own class and value. Many of the most brilliant young writers in +France were proud to sit at his feet and enjoy his brilliant conversation, +chief among whom I may mention that accomplished critic and essayist, +Monsieur Ernest Lajeunesse, who is the author of what is perhaps the best +posthumous notice of him that has been published in France in that +excellent magazine, the "Revue blanche"; among older men who kept up their +friendship with him, Octave Mirbeau, Moreas, Paul Fort, Henri Bauer, and +Jean Lorrain may be mentioned. + +In contrast to this attitude taken up towards him by so many distinguished +and eminent men, I cannot refrain from recalling the attitude adopted by +the general run of English-speaking residents in Paris. For the credit of +my country I am glad to be able to put them down mostly as Americans, or +at any rate so Americanised by the constant absorption of "American +drinks" as to be indistinguishable from the genuine article. These +gentlemen "guessed they didn't want Oscar Wilde to be sitting around" in +the bars where they were in the habit of shedding the light of their +presence, and from one of these establishments Oscar Wilde was requested +by the proprietor to withdraw at the instance of one of our "American +cousins" who is now serving a term of two years penal servitude for +holding up and robbing a bank! + +Oscar Wilde, to do him justice, bore this sort of rebuff with astonishing +good temper and sweetness. His sense of humour and his invincible +self-esteem kept him from brooding over what to another man might have +appeared intolerable, and he certainly possessed the philosophical +temperament to a greater extent than any other man I have ever come +across. Every now and then one or other of the very few faithful English +friends left to him would turn up in Paris and take him to dinner at one +of the best restaurants, and anyone who met him on one of these occasions +would have found it difficult to believe that he had ever passed through +such awful experiences. Whether he was expounding some theory, grave or +fantastic, embroidering it the while with flashes of impromptu wit or +deepening it with extraordinary and intimate learning (for, as Ernest +Lajeunesse says, _he knew everything_), or whether he was "keeping the +table in a roar" with his delightfully whimsical humour, summer-lightning +that flashed and hurt no one, he was equally admirable. To have lived in +his lifetime and not to have heard him talk is as though one had lived for +years at Athens without going to look at the Parthenon. + +I wish I could remember one-hundredth part of the good things he said. He +was extraordinarily quick in answer and repartee, and anyone who says that +his wit was the result of preparation and midnight oil can never have +heard him speak. I remember once at dinner a friend of his who had +formerly been in the "Blues," pointing out that in the opening stanza of +"The Ballad of Reading Jail" he had made a mistake in speaking of the +"scarlet coat" of the man who was hanged; he was, as the dedication of the +poem says, a private in the "Blues," and his coat would therefore +naturally not be scarlet. The lines go-- + + He did not wear his scarlet coat, + For blood and wine are red. + +"Well, what could I do," said Oscar Wilde plaintively, "I couldn't very +well say + + He did not wear his azure coat, + For blood and wine are blue-- + +could I?" + +The last time I saw him was about three months before he died. I took him +to dinner at the Grand Cafe. He was then perfectly well and in the highest +spirits. All through dinner he kept me delighted and amused. Only +afterwards, just before I left him, he became rather depressed. He +actually told me that he didn't think he was going to live long; he had a +presentiment, he said. I tried to turn it off into a joke, but he was +quite serious. "Somehow," he said, "I don't think I shall live to see the +new century." Then a long pause. "If another century began, and I was +still alive, it would be really more than the English could stand." And so +I left him, never to see him alive again. + +Just before he died he came to, after a long period of unconsciousness and +said to a faithful friend who sat by his bedside, "I have had a dreadful +dream; I dreamt that I dined with the dead." "My dear Oscar," replied his +friend, "I am sure you were the life and soul of the party." "Really, you +are sometimes very witty," replied Oscar Wilde, and I believe those are +his last recorded words. The jest was admirable and in his own _genre_; it +was prompted by ready wit and kindness, and because of it Oscar Wilde went +off into his last unconscious phase, which lasted for twelve hours, with +a smile on his lips. I cherish a hope that it is also prophetic, Death +would have no terrors for me if only I were sure of "dining with the +dead."[14] + + + + +"DE PROFUNDIS" + +_A Criticism by_ "_A_" + +(LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS?) + + + "The English are very fond of a man who admits he has been wrong." + + (_The Ideal Husband_). + + + + +"DE PROFUNDIS" + +_A Criticism by_ + +Lord Alfred Douglas + + +In a painful passage in this interesting posthumous book (it takes the +form of a letter to an unnamed friend), Oscar Wilde relates how, on +November the 13th, 1895, he stood for half an hour on the platform of +Clapham Junction, handcuffed and in convict dress, surrounded by an amused +and jeering mob. "For a year after that was done to me," he writes, "I +wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time." That was +before he had discovered or thought he had discovered that his terrible +experiences in prison, his degradation and shame were a part, and a +necessary part, of his artistic life, a completion of his incomplete soul. +After he had learnt humility in the bitterest school that "man's +inhumanity to man" provides for unwilling scholars, after he had drained +the cup of sorrow to the dregs, after his spirit was broken--he wrote this +book in which he tried to persuade himself and others that he had learnt +by suffering and despair what life and pleasure had never taught him. + +If Oscar Wilde's spirit, returning to this world in a malicious mood, had +wished to devise a pleasant and insinuating trap for some of his old +enemies of the press, he could scarcely have hit on a better one than this +book. I am convinced it was written in passionate sincerity at the time, +and yet it represents a mere mood and an unimportant one of the man who +wrote it, a mood too which does not even last through the 150 pages of the +book. "The English are very fond of a man who admits he has been wrong," +he makes one of his characters in "The Ideal Husband" say, and elsewhere +in this book he compares the advantages of pedestals and pillories in +their relation to the public's attitude towards himself. Well here he is +in the pillory, and here also is Mr. Courtney in the "Daily Telegraph" +getting quite fond of him for the very first time. Here is Oscar Wilde, "a +genius," "incontestably one of the greatest dramatists of modern times" as +he is now graciously allowed to be, turning up unexpectedly with an +admission that he was in the wrong, and telling us that his life and his +art would have been incomplete without his imprisonment, that he has +learnt humility and found a new mode of expression in suffering. He is +"purged by grief," "chastened by suffering," and everything, in short, +that he should be, and Mr. Courtney is touched and pleased. What Mr. +Courtney and others have failed to realise, and what Wilde himself did +realise very soon after he wrote this interesting but rather pathetically +ineffective book, is that the mood which produced it was no other than the +first symptom of that mental and physical disease generated by suffering +and confinement which culminated in the death of its gifted and +unfortunate author a few years later. As long as the spirit of revolt was +left in Oscar Wilde, so long was left the fire of creative genius. When +the spirit of revolt died, the flame began to subside, and continued to +subside gradually with spasmodic flickers till its ultimate extinction. "I +have got to make everything that has happened good for me." He writes, +"The plank bed, the loathsome food, the hard rope shredded into oakum till +one's finger tips grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each +day begins, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, the +dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque to look at, the silence, the +solitude, the shame--each and all these things I have to transform into a +spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation of the body which +I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul." But, alas! +plank beds, loathsome food, menial offices, and oakum picking do not +spiritualise the soul; at any rate, they did not spiritualise Oscar +Wilde's soul. The only effect they had was to destroy his magnificent +intellect, and even, as some passages in this book show to temporarily +cloud his superb sense of humour. The return of freedom gave him back the +sense of humour, and the wreck of his magnificent intellect served him so +well to the end of his life that, although he had hopelessly lost the +power of concentration necessary to the production of literary work, he +remained to the day of his death the most brilliant and the most +intellectual talker in Europe. + +It must not be supposed, however, that this book is not a remarkable book +and one which is not worth careful reading. There are fine prose passages +in it, and occasional felicities of phrase which recall the Oscar Wilde of +"The House of Pomegranates" and the "Prose-Poems," and here and there +rather unexpectedly comes an epigram like this for example: "There were +Christians before Christ. For that we should be grateful. The unfortunate +thing is that there have been none since." True, he spoils the epigram by +adding, "I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi." A concession to the +tyranny of facts and the relative importance of sincerity to style, which +is most uncharacteristic of the "old Oscar." Nevertheless, the trace of +the master hand is still visible, and the book contains much that is +profound and subtle on the philosophy of Christ as conceived by this +modern evangelist of the gospel of Life and Literature. One does not +travel further than the 33rd page of the book before finding glaring and +startling inconsistencies in the mental attitude of the writer towards his +fate, for whereas on page 18 in a rather rhetorical passage he speaks of +the "eternal disgrace" he had brought on the "noble and honoured name" +bequeathed him by his father and mother, on page 33 "Reason" tells him +"that the laws under which he was convicted are wrong and unjust laws, and +the system under which he has suffered a wrong and unjust system." But +this is the spirit of revolt not quite crushed. He says that if he had +been released a year sooner, as in fact he very nearly was, he would have +left his prison full of rage and bitterness, and without the treasure of +his new-found "Humility." I am unregenerate enough to wish that he had +brought his rage and bitterness with him out of prison. True, he would +never have written this book if he had come out of prison a year sooner, +but he would almost certainly have written several more incomparable +comedies, and we who reverenced him as a great artist in words, and +mourned his downfall as an irreparable blow to English Literature would +have been spared the rather painful experience of reading the posthumous +praise now at last so lavishly given to what certainly cannot rank within +measurable distance of his best work. + +A. + +From "_The Motorist and Traveller_" (March 1, 1905). + + + + +LIST OF PRIVATELY ISSUED HISTORICAL, ARTISTIC, +AND CLASSICAL WORKS IN ENGLISH + + +Thais + +_Romance of the Byzantine Empire (Fourth Century)_ + +From the French of ANATOLE FRANCE + +With Twenty Copper-plate Etchings by Martin van Maele + +PRICE 21_s._ + +"THAIS" is a work of religious mysticism. The story of the Priest-hero who +sought to stamp out the flames of nature is told with a delicacy and +realism that will at once charm and command the reader's attention. +Anatole France is one of the most brilliant literary men in the world, and +stands foremost amongst giants like Daudet, Zola, and Maupassant. + + The book before us is a historical novel based on the legend of the + conversion of the courtesan Thais of Alexandria by a monk of the + Thebaid. Thais may be described as first cousin to the Pelagia of + Charles Kingsley "Hypatia;" indeed, the two books, dealing as they do + with the same place and period, Alexandria in the fourth century, + offer points of resemblance, as well as of difference, many and + various, and sufficiently interesting to be commended to the notice of + students of comparative criticism. There is, however, a subtle and + profound moral lesson about the work of Mr. Anatole France which is + wanting in Kingsley's shallower and more commonplace conception of + human motive and passion. The keynote is struck in the warning which + an old schoolfellow of the monk Paphnutius addresses to him when he + learns of his intention to snatch Thais as a brand from the burning: + "Beware of offending Venus. She is a powerful goddess; she will be + angry with you if you take away her chief minister." The monk + disregards the warning of the man of the world, and perseveres with + his self-imposed task, and that so successfully that Thais forsakes + her life of pleasure, and ultimately expires in the odour of sanctity. + _Custodes, sed quis custodiet ipsos?_ Paphnutius has deceived himself, + and has failed to perceive that what he took for zeal for a lost soul + was in reality but human desire for a fair face. The monk, who has won + Heaven for the beautiful sinner, loses it himself for love of her, and + is left at the end, baffled and blaspheming, before the dead body of + the woman he has loved all the time without knowing that he loved her. + + It is impossible for the reviewer to convey any adequate notion of the + subtle skill with which the author deals with a delicate but intensely + human theme. Alike as a piece of psychical analysis and as a picture + of the age, this book stands head and shoulders above any that we have + ever read about the period with which it deals. It is a work of rare + beauty, and, we may add, of profound moral truth, albeit not written + precisely _virginibus puerisque_. + + It is emphatically the work of a great artist.--(From a Notice in + "_The Pall Mall Gazette_"). + + +The Well of Santa Clara + +This work is, from the deep interest of its contents, the beauty of its +typography and paper, and the elegance and daring of the illustrations, +one of the finest works in _edition de luxe_ yet offered to the collectors +of rare books. + +Apart from the other stories, all of them written with that exquisite +grace and ironical humour for which Anatole France is unmatched, "The +Human Tragedy," forming half of the book, is alone worthy to rank amongst +the master-efforts of literature. The dominant idea of "The Human Tragedy" +is foreshadowed by the quotation from Euripedes: _All the life of man is +full of pain, and there is no surcease of sorrow. If there be aught better +elsewhere than this present life, it is hid, shrouded in the clouds of +darkness._ + +The English rendering of this work is, from its purity and strength of +style, a veritable _tour de force_. The book will be prized and +appreciated by scholars and lovers of the beautiful in art. + +New Grasset characters have been used for this work, limited to 500 +numbered copies on handmade paper; each page of text is contained in an +artistic green border, and the work in its entirety constitutes a volume +of rare excellence. + +Twenty-one clever COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS (in the most finished style) by +MARTIN VAN MAELE. + + +The Well of Santa Clara + +_CONTENTS_ + + + Pages + + Prologue.--The Reverend Father Adone Doni 1 + + I. San Satiro 18 + + II. Messer Guido Cavalcanti 71 + + III. Lucifer 102 + + IV. The Loaves of Black Bread 116 + + V. The Merry-hearted Buffalmacco 126 + I. The Cockroaches 127 + II. The Ascending up of Andria Tafin 143 + III. The Master 163 + IV. The Painter 172 + + VI. The Lady of Verona 184 + + VII. The Human Tragedy + I. Fra Giovanni 193 + II. The Lamp 206 + III. The Seraphic Doctor 210 + IV. The Loaf on the Flat Stone 214 + V. The Table under the Fig-tree 218 + VI. The Temptation 223 + VII. The Subtle Doctor 232 + VIII. The Burning Coal 245 + IX. The House of Innocence 248 + X. The Friends of Order 260 + XI. The Revolt of Gentleness 271 + XII. Words of Love 280 + XIII. The Truth 288 + XIV. Giovanni's Dream 304 + XV. The Judgment 317 + XVI. The Prince of this World 326 + + VIII. The Mystic Blood 343 + + IX. A Sound Security 360 + + X. History of Dona Maria d'Avalos and the Duke d'Andria 379 + + XI. Bonaparte at San Miniato 405 + +PRICE: ONE GUINEA. + + +Oscar Wilde's Works. + +Poems in Prose: + + The Artist + The Doer of Good + The Disciple + The Master + The House of Judgment, etc. + + Limited Edition of Five Hundred Copies on superior + English vellum paper, and printed in Grasset characters in + red and black. Price 5s. + + Fifty copies on Japanese paper. Price 10s. + + +OSCAR WILDE: + +What Never Dies + +(Ce qui ne meurt pas) + +One Volume small crown 8vo., bound in white parchment. Nearly 400 pages. + +Price 10s. 6d. + +Translated into English by 'Sebastian Melmoth' (OSCAR WILDE), from the +French of BARBEY D'AUREVILLY. A strange and powerful romance of LOVE AND +PASSION IN A COUNTRY HOUSE, similar to the plot unfolded in Guy de +Maupassant's "Lady's Man," but told in even more lordly and brilliant +language; the wonderful French of "Barbey" being rendered into yet more +wonderful English by OSCAR WILDE. + + +THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY + +By Oscar Wilde + +Sole Authorized Version + +_Limited Edition of One Hundred Copies on Real Hand-made English paper, +Price 15s._ + + +Translated from the Latin by Oscar Wilde + +The Satyricon of Petronius + +A Literal and Complete Translation with Notes and Introduction. + +Circular free for 2-1/2d. + +_Price_, L1. 11_s._ 6_d._ + +_Fifteen Copies on Papier de Chine, Price_ L2. 2s. + +This Edition is not only the ... MOST COMPLETE AND BRILLIANT ever done +into English, but it constitutes also a typographical _bijou_, being +printed in a limited number on handmade paper in red and black throughout. + + +Unknown Poems by Lord Byron + +DON LEON + +A Poem by the late Lord Byron + +Author of Childe Harold, Don Juan, etc. + +And forming part of the Private Journal of His Lordship, supposed to have +been entirely destroyed by Thos. Moore. + + "_Pardon, dear Tom, these thoughts on days gone by; + Me men revile and thou must justify. + Yet in my bosom apprehensions rise + (For brother poets have their jealousies), + Lest under false pretences thou shoudst turn + A faithless friend, and these confessions burn._" + +"DON JUAN" is generally spoken of as a composition remarkable for its +daring gallantry; but here is a long connected poetical work by the same +Author which far outdistances "Don Juan" both in audacity of conception +and licence of language. + +These poems were issued _sub rosa_ in 1866, and owing to the fact that +interested persons bought up immediately on its appearance and burnt the +entire output, any stray copies that chanced to escape the general +destruction, when they turn up nowadays, fetch from Five to Ten Guineas +each. + +_The size of the book is small crown octavo, 134 pp., in artistic paper +wrappers._ + +This issue has been limited to Two Hundred and Fifty copies as follows: + + Price: + + 175 on Ordinary Vellum paper 10s.6d. + + 75 on French hand-made paper L1.1s. + +Detailed circular on demand for 2d. + + +Curious By-Paths of History + +Studies of Louis XIV; Richelieu; Mdlle de la Valliere; Madame de +Pompadour; Sophie Arnould's Sickness; The True Charlotte Corday; A Savage +"Hound;" In the Hands of the "Charcutiers;" Napoleon's Superstitions; The +Affair of Madame Recamier and Queen Elizabeth of England, etc. + +Followed by a fascinating study of + + FLAGELLATION IN FRANCE from a Medical and Historical Standpoint + +With special Foreword by the Editor, dealing with the Reviewers of a +previous work, and sundry other cognate matters good to be known; +particularly concerning the high-handed proceedings of British +Philistinism, which here receives "a rap on the knuckles." A fine +realistic Frontispiece after a design by DANIEL VIERGE, etched by F. +MASSE. + +The whole (in Two Volumes), Price 21s. + +With this book is given away (undercover) a fine plate entitled _CONJUGAL +CORRECTION_, reproduced in Aquatint by the Maison Goupil, of Paris, after +the famous Oil Painting of Correggio. + + +Fascinating Historical Studies by a French Physician. + +The Secret Cabinet of History + +Peeped into by a Doctor (Dr. Cabanes) + +Translated by W. C. COSTELLO, And preceded by a letter from the pen of +M. VICTORIEN SARDOU (de l'Academie francaise). + +One stout Volume of 260 pages. Edition limited to 500 Copies, on fine +quality Dutch (Van Gelder) azure paper, with wide margins and untrimmed +edges, specially manufactured for this Edition; cloth bound. + +Price 12s. 6d. + +_The "get up" of the book will please all who like beautiful printing and +choice paper._ + +Although the bizarre character of some of the subjects may tempt us to +imagine that it is all a fiction, torn from the "Arabian Nights," and +placed in an Eighteenth Century setting, the references and authorities +marshalled by Dr. Cabanes will quickly convince the sceptically inclined +that the whole is based on unimpeachable documents. + + +"Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles" + +(Louis XI.) + +Done now for the first time into English. + +One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories + +right pleasaunte to relate in all goodly compagnie by way of joyaunce and +jollity + +Two volumes demy 8vo., over 526 pages on fine English antique deckle-edged +paper, with FIFTY COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS by LEON LEBEQUE, the whole +strongly bound in English water-coloured Silk Cloth. + +Price L3.3s. + +500 NUMBERED COPIES PRINTED + +For England and America + +ALSO 75 LARGE NUMBERED COPIES + +Printed on Japanese vellum + +PRICE: L5. 5s. net + +Although this work has been published many times in French during the last +four-and-a half centuries, it has never hitherto been done into English, +and in fact is little known in England at all on account of its archaic +form, which renders the reading of the original impossible to any but a +student of old French. + +Very little inferior to Boccaccio and far superior to the Heptameron, the +stories possess a brightness and gaiety entirely their own; moreover they +are of high literary merit. + +Illustrated Circular free by post for 5d. + + +The ... Evolution and Dissolution of the Sexual Instinct ... + +By ... Doctor Charles FERE of the Bicetre Hospital, (PARIS) + +Price: 21s. + +"Truth and science are never immoral; but it cannot be denied that the +narration of facts relating to sexual physiology and pathology, if their +real significance is not pointed out, may be the cause of perversion in +the case of predisposed subjects. The danger appears more serious to those +who think that normal individuals may be perverted under the influence of +environment, and yet more serious when the sexual instinct is represented +as an uncontrollable instinct, which nobody can resist, however abnormal +the form in which the instinct may reveal itself." + + + + + The Only Worthy Translation into French + + OSCAR WILDE + + Intentions + + Traduction francaise de HUGUES REBELL + + Preface de CHARLES GROLLEAU + + _Orne d'un portrait_ + + Un volume in-8o carre. Impression de luxe sur _antique vellum_. + + Prix: 6 francs. + + Il a ete tire _trente_ exemplaires sur Japon imperial. + + Prix: 12 francs. + + + PARIS + CHARLES CARRINGTON, LIBRAIRE-EDITEUR + 13, Faubourg Montmartre, 13 + + 1906 + + +NOTICE + +"INTENTIONS" est un des ouvrages les plus curieux qui se puisse lire. On y +trouve tout l'esprit, si paradoxal, toute l'etonnante culture du brillant +ecrivain que fut Oscar WILDE. + +Des cinq _Essais_ que contient ce livre, trois sont sous forme de dialogue +et donnent l'impression parfaite de ce qui fut le plus grand prestige de +WILDE: la Causerie. + +La traduction que nous publions aujourd'hui, outre sa fidelite scrupuleuse +et son incontestable elegance, offre cet attrait particulier d'etre le +dernier travail d'un des jeunes maitres de la prose francaise, Hugues +REBELL, qui l'acheva peu de jours avant sa mort. + +La preface de M. Charles GROLLEAU, ecrite avec une delicatesse remarquable +et une emotion penetrante, constitue la plus subtile etude psychologique +que l'on ait jamais publiee sur Oscar WILDE. + + +Sous presse: + + _Du meme Auteur_: + + Poemes en Prose. + La Duchesse de Padoue. + La Maison des Grenades. + + +L'oeuvre d'Oscar Wilde demande a etre traduite a la fois avec precision +et avec art. Les phrases ont des significations si tenues et le choix des +mots est si habile qu'une traduction defectueuse, abondante en contre-sens +ou en coquilles, risquerait de decevoir grandement le lecteur. Car il faut +bien compter que ceux qui se soucient de connaitre Oscar Wilde ne peuvent +etre ni des concierges ni des cochers de fiacre; ils n'appartiennent +certainement pas a ce "grand public" qui se delecte aux emouvants +feuilletons de nos quotidiens populaires ou qui savoure avidement les +elucubrations egrillardes de certains fabricants de pretendue litterature. +C'est ce qu'avait compris l'editeur Carrington quand il chargea Hugues +Rebell de lui traduire _Intentions_. Ces essais d'Oscar Wilde representent +plus particulierement le cote paradoxal et frondeur de sa personalite. Il +y exprime ses idees ou plutot ses subtilites esthetiques; il y "cause" +plus qu'ailleurs, a tel point que trois de ces essais sur cinq sont +dialogues; l'auteur s'entretient avec des personnages qu'il suppose aussi +cultives, aussi beaux esprits que lui-meme: "s'entretient" est beaucoup +dire, car ce sont plutot des contradicteurs auxquels il suggere les +objections dont il a besoin pour poursuivre le developpement et le +triomphe de ses arguments. La conversation vagabonde a plaisir et le +causeur y fait etalage de toutes les richesses de son esprit, de son +imagination, de sa memoire. Au milieu de ces citations, de ces allusions, +de ces exemples innombrables empruntes a tous les temps et a tous les +pays, le traducteur a chance de s'egarer s'il n'est lui-meme homme d'une +culture tres sure et tres variee. Hugues Rebell pouvait, sans danger de +paraitre ignorant ou ridicule, entreprendre de donner une version +d'_Intentions_. Il n'avait certes pas fait de la litterature anglaise +contemporaine, non plus que d'aucune epoque, l'objet d'etudes speciales. +Mais il connaissait cette litterature dans son ensemble beaucoup mieux que +certains qui s'autorisent de quelques excursions a Londres pour clamer a +tout venant leur competence douteuse. J'ai souvenir de maintes occasions +ou Rebell, avec cet air mysterieux qu'il ne pouvait s'empecher de prendre +pour les choses les plus simples, m'attirait a l'ecart de tel groupe +d'amis, ou la conversation etait generale, pour me parler de tel jeune +auteur sur qui l'une de mes chroniques avait attire son attention. Et, +chaque fois, il faisait preuve, en ces matieres, d'un savoir tres etendu. + +Hugues Rebell fit donc cette necessaire traduction, et, dit l'editeur dans +une note preliminaire, "c'est le dernier travail auquel il put se livrer. +Il nous en remit les derniers feuillets peu de jours avant sa mort". +Rebell devait prefacer ce travail d'une etude sur la vie et les oeuvres du +poete anglais, etude qu'il ne put qu'ebaucher, malheureusement, car, avec +Gide,--mais celui-ci d'un point de vue different et peut-etre oppose,--il +etait exclusivement qualifie pour saisir, demeler et interpreter l'etrange +personnalite de Wilde. Quelques fragments de cette etude nous sont donnes +cependant et ils nous font tres vivement regretter que le vigoureux et +paradoxal auteur de l'_Union des Trois Aristocraties_ n'ait pu achever son +travail. + +Mais ce regret bien legitime se mitige grandement a mesure qu'on lit la +belle preface de M. Charles Grolleau. Prenant pour epigraphe cette pensee +de Pascal: "Je blame egalement et ceux qui prennent le parti de louer +l'homme, et ceux qui le prennent de le blamer, et ceux qui le prennent de +se divertir; et je ne puis approuver que ceux qui cherchent en gemissant", +M. Grolleau s'efforce de comprendre et de resoudre ce "douloureux +probleme" que fut Wilde. Et il le fait avec cette reserve et ce parfait +bon gout que doivent s'imposer les veritables amis et les sinceres +admirateurs d'Oscar Wilde. Il y a plus, dans ces cinquante pages: il y a +l'une des meilleures etudes qui aient jamais ete faites du brillant +dramaturge. Bien qu'il s'en defende, M. Grolleau, dans cette langue +elegante et harmonieuse que lui connaissent ceux qui ont lu ses beaux +vers, reussit a discerner mieux et a mieux reveler que certaines diatribes +"l'ame et la passion" de l'auteur de _De Profundis_. + + Je me suis interdit d'ecrire une biographie. Je ne connais que + l'ecrivain, et l'homme est trop vivant encore et si blesse! J'ai la + devotion des plaies, et le plus beau rite de cette devotion est le + geste qui voile. + +Toute "cette meditation sur une ame tres belle" est ecrite avec ce tact +delicat et cette tendre sympathie. Ainsi, apres avoir admire ces +emouvantes pages, le lecteur peut aborder dans un etat d'esprit convenable +les essais parfois deconcertants qui sont reunis sous le titre +significatif d'_Intentions_. C'est dans cette belle edition qu'il faut les +lire. On sait avec quel souci d'artiste M. Carrington etablit ses volumes; +il n'y laisse pas de ces incroyables coquilles, de ces epais mastics qui +ressemblent si fort a des contre-sens, et, sachant quel public intelligent +et eclaire voudrait ce livre, il n'a pas eu l'idee saugrenue d'abimer ses +pages par d'inutiles notes assurant le lecteur par exemple que Dante a +ecrit la Divine Comedie, que Shelley fut un grand poete, que Keats mourut +poitrinaire, que George Eliot etait femme de lettres et Lancret peintre. +Un portrait de l'auteur est reproduit en tete de cette excellente edition. + +Henry-D. Davray. + +_(Extrait du "Mercure de France," 15 septembre 1905)._ + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Hugues Rebell. + +[2] Hugues Rebell. + +[3] Sebastian Melmoth (Oscar Wilde). + +[4] Hugues Rebell. + +[5] _De Profundis._ + +[6] Hugues Rebell. + +[7] _Studies in Prose & Verse_, by Arthur Symons. (Lond. 1905). + +[8] Sebastian Melmoth. + +[9] _Intentions._ + +[10] Hugues Rebell. + +[11] _Macaulay._ + +[12] De Profundis, 1905. + +[13] De Profundis, 1905. + +[14] Both of the articles given above appeared for the first time in the +ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trial of Oscar Wilde, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE *** + +***** This file should be named 38916.txt or 38916.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/9/1/38916/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +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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