OSCAR WILDE

HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS

BY

FRANK HARRIS

VOLUME II

[Illustration: Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas About 1893]

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

29 WAVERLEY PLACENEW YORK CITY

MCMXVIII

Imprime en AllemagnePrinted in Germany

 For he who sins a second time Wakes a dead soul to pain, And draws it from its spotted shroud, And makes it bleed again, And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, And makes it bleed in vain. 

 --_The Ballad of Reading Gaol. _

Copyright, 1916, BY FRANK HARRIS

BOOK II

CHAPTER XVII

Prison for Oscar Wilde, an English prison with its insufficient badfood[1] and soul-degrading routine for that amiable, joyous, eloquent, pampered Sybarite. Here was a test indeed; an ordeal as by fire. Whatwould he make of two years' hard labour in a lonely cell?

There are two ways of taking prison, as of taking most things, and allthe myriad ways between these two extremes; would Oscar be conquered byit and allow remorse and hatred to corrupt his very heart, or would heconquer the prison and possess and use it? Hammer or anvil--which?

Victory has its virtue and is justified of itself like sunshine; defeatcarries its own condemnation. Yet we have all tasted its bitter waters:only "infinite virtue" can pass through life victorious, Shakespearetells us, and we mortals are not of infinite virtue. The myriadvicissitudes of the struggle search out all our weaknesses; test allour powers. Every victory shows a more difficult height to scale, asteeper pinnacle of god-like hardship--that's the reward of victory: itprovides the hero with ever-new battle-fields: no rest for him this sidethe grave. 

But what of defeat? What sweet is there in its bitter? This may be saidfor it; it is our great school: punishment teaches pity, just assuffering teaches sympathy. In defeat the brave soul learns kinship withother men, takes the rub to heart; seeks out the reason for the fall inhis own weakness, and ever afterwards finds it impossible to judge, muchless condemn his fellow. But after all no one can hurt us but ourselves;prison, hard labour, and the hate of men; what are these if they makeyou truer, wiser, kinder?

Have you come to grief through self-indulgence and good-living? Here aremonths in which men will take care that you shall eat badly and liehard. Did you lack respect for others? Here are men who will show you noconsideration. Were you careless of others' sufferings? Here now youshall agonize unheeded: gaolers and governors as well as black cellsjust to teach you. Thank your stars then for every day's experience, for, when you have learned the lesson of it and turned its disciplineinto service, the prison shall transform itself into a hermitage, thedungeon into a home; the burnt skilly shall be sweet in your mouth; andyour rest on the plank-bed the dreamless slumber of a little child. 

And if you are an artist, prison will be more to you than this; anastonishing vital and novel experience, accorded only to the chosen. What will you make of it? That's the question for you. It is a wonderfulopportunity. Seen truly, a prison's more spacious than a palace; nay, richer, and for a loving soul, a far rarer experience. Thank then thespirit which steers men for the divine chance which has come to you;henceforth the prison shall be your domain; in future men will not thinkof it without thinking of you. Others may show them what the good thingsof life do for one; you will show them what suffering can do, cold andregretful sleepless hours and solitude, misery and distress. Others willteach the lessons of joy. The whole vast underworld of pity and pain, fear and horror and injustice is your kingdom. Men have drawn darknessabout you as a curtain, shrouded you in blackest night; the light in youwill shine the brighter. Always provided of course that the light is notput out altogether. 

Hammer or anvil? How would Oscar Wilde take punishment?

 * * * * *

We could not know for months. Yet he was an artist by nature--that gaveone a glimmer of hope. We needed it. For outside at first there was anicy atmosphere of hatred and contempt. The mere mention of his name wasmet with expressions of disgust, or frozen silence. 

One bare incident will paint the general feeling more clearly than pagesof invective or description. The day after Oscar's sentence Mr. CharlesBrookfield, who, it will be remembered, had raked together the witnessesthat enabled Lord Queensberry to "justify" his accusation; assisted byMr. Charles Hawtrey, the actor, gave a dinner to Lord Queensberry tocelebrate their triumph. Some forty Englishmen of good position werepresent at the banquet--a feast to celebrate the ruin and degradation ofa man of genius. 

Yet there are true souls in England, noble, generous hearts. I remembera lunch at Mrs. Jeune's, where one declared that Wilde was at lengthenjoying his deserts; another regretted that his punishment was soslight, a third with precise knowledge intimated delicately and withquiet complacence that two years' imprisonment with hard labour usuallyresulted in idiocy or death: fifty per cent. , it appeared, failed to winthrough. It was more to be dreaded on all accounts than five years'penal servitude. "You see it begins with starvation and solitaryconfinement, and that breaks up the strongest. I think it will beenough for our vainglorious talker. " Miss Madeleine Stanley (now LadyMiddleton) was sitting beside me, her fine, sensitive face clouded: Icould not contain myself, I was being whipped on a sore. 

"This must have been the way they talked in Jerusalem, " I remarked, "after the world-tragedy. "

"You were an intimate friend of his, were you not?" insinuated thedelicate one gently. 

"A friend and admirer, " I replied, "and always shall be. "

A glacial silence spread round the table, while the delicate one smiledwith deprecating contempt, and offered some grapes to his neighbour; buthelp came. Lady Dorothy Nevill was a little further down the table: shehad not heard all that was said, but had caught the tone of theconversation and divined the rest. 

"Are you talking of Oscar Wilde?" she exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear yousay you are a friend. I am, too, and shall always be proud of havingknown him, a most brilliant, charming man. "

"I think of giving a dinner to him when he comes out, Lady Dorothy, " Isaid. 

"I hope you'll ask me, " she answered bravely. "I should be glad to come. I always admired and liked him; I feel dreadfully sorry for him. "

The delicate one adroitly changed the conversation and coffee came in, but Miss Stanley said to me:

"I wish I had known him, there must have been great good in him to winsuch friendship. "

"Great charm in any case, " I replied, "and that's rarer among men thaneven goodness. "

The first news that came to us from prison was not altogether bad. Hehad broken down and was in the infirmary, but was getting better. Thebrave Stewart Headlam, who had gone bail for him, had visited him, theStewart Headlam who was an English clergyman, and yet, wonder ofwonders, a Christian. A little later one heard that Sherard had seenhim, and brought about a reconciliation with his wife. Mrs. Wilde hadbeen very good and had gone to the prison and had no doubt comfortedhim. Much to be hoped from all this. .. . 

For months and months the situation in South Africa took all my heartand mind. 

In the first days of January, 1896, came the Jameson Raid, and I sailedfor South Africa. I had work to do for _The Saturday Review_, absorbingwork by day and night. In the summer I was back in England, but the taskof defending the Boer farmers grew more and more arduous, and I onlyheard that Oscar was going on as well as could be expected. 

Some time later, after he had been transferred to Reading Gaol, bad newsleaked out, news that he was breaking up, was being punished, persecuted. His friends came to me, asking: could anything be done? Asusual my only hope was in the supreme authority. Sir Evelyn RugglesBrise was the head of the Prison Commission; after the Home Secretary, the most powerful person, the permanent official behind theParliamentary figure-head; the man who knew and acted behind the man whotalked. I sat down and wrote to him for an interview: by return came acourteous note giving me an appointment. 

I told him what I had heard about Oscar, that his health was breakingdown and his reason going, pointed out how monstrous it was to turnprison into a torture-chamber. To my utter astonishment he agreed withme, admitted, even, that an exceptional man ought to have exceptionaltreatment; showed not a trace of pedantry; good brains, good heart. Hewent so far as to say that Oscar Wilde should be treated with allpossible consideration, that certain prison rules which pressed veryhardly upon him should be interpreted as mildly as possible. He admittedthat the punishment was much more severe to him than it would be to anordinary criminal, and had nothing but admiration for his brilliantgifts. 

"It was a great pity, " he said, "that Wilde ever got into prison, agreat pity. "

I was pushing at an open door; besides the year or so which had elapsedsince the condemnation had given time for reflection. Still, Sir RugglesBrise's attitude was extraordinary, sympathetic at once and high-minded:another true Englishman at the head of affairs: infinite hope in thatfact, and solace. 

I had stuck to my text that something should be done at once to giveOscar courage and hope; he must not be murdered or left to despair. 

Sir Ruggles Brise asked me finally if I would go to Reading and reporton Oscar Wilde's condition and make any suggestion that might occur tome. He did not know if this could be arranged; but he would see the HomeSecretary and would recommend it, if I were willing. Of course I waswilling, more than willing. Two or three days later, I got anotherletter from him with another appointment, and again I went to see him. He received me with charming kindness. The Home Secretary would be gladif I would go down to Reading and report on Oscar Wilde's state. 

"Everyone, " said Sir Ruggles Brise, "speaks with admiration and delightof his wonderful talents. The Home Secretary thinks it would be a greatloss to English literature if he were really injured by the prisondiscipline. Here is your order to see him alone, and a word ofintroduction to the Governor, and a request to give you allinformation. "

I could not speak. I could only shake hands with him in silence. 

What a country of anomalies England is! A judge of the High Court a hardself-satisfied pernicious bigot, while the official in charge of theprisons is a man of wide culture and humane views, who has the courageof a noble humanity. 

I went to Reading Gaol and sent in my letter. I was met by the Governor, who gave orders that Oscar Wilde should be conducted to a room where wecould talk alone. I cannot give an account of my interviews with theGovernor or the doctor; it would smack of a breach of confidence;besides all such conversations are peculiarly personal: some people callforth the best in us, others the worst. Without wishing to, I may havestirred up the lees. I can only say here that I then learned for thefirst time the full, incredible meaning of "Man's inhumanity to man. "

In a quarter of an hour I was led into a bare room where Oscar Wilde wasalready standing by a plain deal table. The warder who had come withhim then left us. We shook hands and sat down opposite to each other. Hehad changed greatly. He appeared much older; his dark brown hair wasstreaked with grey, particularly in front and over the ears. He was muchthinner, had lost at least thirty-five pounds, probably forty or more. On the whole, however, he looked better physically than he had lookedfor years before his imprisonment: his eyes were clear and bright; theoutlines of the face were no longer swamped in fat; the voice even wasringing and musical; he had improved bodily, I thought; though in reposehis face wore a nervous, depressed and harassed air. 

"You know how glad I am to see you, heart-glad to find you looking sowell, " I began, "but tell me quickly, for I may be able to help you, what have you to complain of; what do you want?"

For a long time he was too hopeless, too frightened to talk. "The listof my grievances, " he said, "would be without end. The worst of it is Iam perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves topunish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectlyawful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nethermillstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my lifewould be livable--any life, " he added sadly. 

"The life, then, is hard. Tell me about it. "

"I don't like to, " he said, "it is all so dreadful--and ugly andpainful, I would rather not think of it, " and he turned awaydespairingly. 

"You must tell me, or I shall not be able to help you. " Bit by bit I wonthe confession from him. 

"At first it was a fiendish nightmare; more horrible than anything I hadever dreamt of; from the first evening when they made me undress beforethem and get into some filthy water they called a bath and dry myselfwith a damp, brown rag and put on this livery of shame. The cell wasappalling: I could hardly breathe in it, and the food turned my stomach;the smell and sight of it were enough: I did not eat anything for daysand days, I could not even swallow the bread; and the rest of the foodwas uneatable; I lay on the so-called bed and shivered all nightlong. .. . Don't ask me to speak of it, please. Words cannot convey thecumulative effect of a myriad discomforts, brutal handling and slowstarvation. Surely like Dante I have written on my face the fact that Ihave been in hell. Only Dante never imagined any hell like an Englishprison; in his lowest circle people could move about; could see eachother, and hear each other groan: there was some change, some humancompanionship in misery. .. . "

"When did you begin to eat the food?" I asked. 

"I can't tell, Frank, " he replied. "After some days I got so hungry Ihad to eat a little, nibble at the outside of the bread, and drink someof the liquid; whether it was tea, coffee or gruel, I could not tell. Assoon as I really ate anything it produced violent diarrhoea and I wasill all day and all night. From the beginning I could not sleep. I grewweak and had wild delusions. .. . You must not ask me to describe it. Itis like asking a man who has gone through fever to describe one of theterrifying dreams. At Wandsworth I thought I should go mad; Wandsworthis the worst: no dungeon in hell can be worse; why is the food so bad?It even smelt bad. It was not fit for dogs. "

"Was the food the worst of it?" I asked. 

"The hunger made you weak, Frank; but the inhumanity was the worst ofit; what devilish creatures men are. I had never known anything aboutthem. I had never dreamt of such cruelties. A man spoke to me atexercise. You know you are not allowed to speak. He was in front of me, and he whispered, so that he could not be seen, how sorry he was for me, and how he hoped I would bear up. I stretched out my hands to him andcried, 'Oh, thank you, thank you. ' The kindness of his voice broughttears into my eyes. Of course I was punished at once for speaking; adreadful punishment. I won't think of it: I dare not. They areinfinitely cunning in malice here, Frank; infinitely cunning inpunishment. .. . Don't let us talk of it, it is too painful, too horriblethat men should be so brutal. "

"Give me an instance, " I said, "of something less painful; somethingwhich may be bettered. "

He smiled wanly. "All of it, Frank, all of it should be altered. Thereis no spirit in a prison but hate, hate masked in degrading formalism. They first break the will and rob you of hope, and then rule by fear. One day a warder came into my cell. 

"'Take off your boots, ' he said. 

"Of course I began to obey him; then I asked:

"'What is it? Why must I take off my boots?'

"He would not answer me. As soon as he had my boots, he said:

"'Come out of your cell. '

"'Why?' I asked again. I was frightened, Frank. What had I done? I couldnot guess; but then I was often punished for nothing: what was it? Noanswer. As soon as we were in the corridor he ordered me to stand withmy face to the wall, and went away. There I stood in my stocking feetwaiting. The cold chilled me through; I began standing first on onefoot and then on the other, racking my brains as to what they were goingto do to me, wondering why I was being punished like this, and how longit would last; you know the thoughts fear-born that plague the mind. .. . After what seemed an eternity I heard him coming back. I did not dare tomove or even look. He came up to me; stopped by me for a moment; myheart stopped; he threw down a pair of boots beside me, and said:

"'Go to your cell and put those on, ' and I went into my cell shaking. That's the way they give you a new pair of boots in prison, Frank;that's the way they are kind to you. "

"The first period was the worst?" I asked. 

"Oh, yes, infinitely the worst! One gets accustomed to everything intime, to the food and the bed and the silence: one learns the rules, andknows what to expect and what to fear. .. . "

"How did you win through the first period?" I asked. 

"I died, " he said quietly, "and came to life again, as a patient. " Istared at him. "Quite true, Frank. What with the purgings and thesemi-starvation and sleeplessness and, worst of all, the regret gnawingat my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker andweaker; my clothes hung on me; I could scarcely move. One Sundaymorning after a very bad night I could not get out of bed. The wardercame in and I told him I was ill. "

"'You had better get up, ' he said; but I couldn't take the good advice. 

"'I can't, ' I replied, 'you must do what you like with me. '

"Half an hour later the doctor came and looked in at the door. He nevercame near me; he simply called out:

"'Get up; no malingering; you're all right. You'll be punished if youdon't get up, ' and he went away. 

"I had to get up. I was very weak; I fell off my bed while dressing, andbruised myself; but I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to gowith the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all outof tune in praise of their pitiless God. 

"I could hardly stand up; everything kept disappearing and coming backfaintly: and suddenly I must have fallen. .. . " He put his hand to hishead. "I woke up feeling a pain in this ear. I was in the infirmary witha warder by me. My hand rested on a clean white sheet; it was likeheaven. I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it, it was so smooth and cool and clean. The nurse with kind eyes said tome:

"'Do eat something, ' and gave me some thin white bread and butter. Frank, I shall never forget it. The water came into my mouth in streams;I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious; I was so weak Icried, " and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears. 

"I shall never forget it: the warder was so kind. I did not like to tellhim I was famished; but when he went away I picked the crumbs off thesheet and ate them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to theedge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor and ate thoseas well; the white bread was so good and I was so hungry. "

"And now?" I asked, not able to stand more. 

"Oh, now, " he said, with an attempt to be cheerful, "of course it wouldbe all right if they did not take my books away from me. If they wouldlet me write. If only they would let me write as I wish, I should bequite content, but they punish me on every pretext. Why do they do it, Frank? Why do they want to make my life here one long misery?"

"Aren't you a little deaf still?" I asked, to ease the passion I felt ofintolerable pity. 

"Yes, " he replied, "on this side, where I fell in the chapel. I fell onmy ear, you know, and I must have burst the drum of it, or injured itin some way, for all through the winter it has ached and it often bleedsa little. "

"But they could give you some cotton wool or something to put in it?" Isaid. 

He smiled a poor wan smile:

"If you think one dare disturb a doctor or a warder for an earache, youdon't know much about a prison; you would pay for it. Why, Frank, however ill I was now, " and he lowered his voice to a whisper andglanced about him as if fearing to be overheard, "however ill I was Iwould not think of sending for the doctor. Not think of it, " he said inan awestruck voice. "I have learned prison ways. "

"I should rebel, " I cried; "why do you let it break the spirit?"

"You would soon be broken, if you rebelled, here. Besides it is allincidental to the _System_. The _System_! No one outside knows what thatmeans. It is an old story, I'm afraid, the story of man's cruelty toman. "

"I think I can promise you, " I said, "that the _System_ will be altereda little. You shall have books and things to write with, and you shallnot be harassed every moment by punishment. "

"Take care, " he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine, "take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they cando. " I grew hot with indignation. 

"Don't say anything, please, of what I have said to you. Promise me, youwon't say anything. Promise me. I never complained, I didn't. " Hisexcitement was a revelation. 

"All right, " I replied, to soothe him. 

"No, but promise me, seriously, " he repeated. "You must promise me. Think, you have my confidence, it is private what I have said. " He wasevidently frightened out of self-control. 

"All right, " I said, "I will not tell; but I'll get the facts from theothers and not from you. "

"Oh, Frank, " he said, "you don't know what they do. There is apunishment here more terrible than the rack. " And he whispered to mewith white sidelong eyes: "They can drive you mad in a week, Frank. "[2]

"Mad!" I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him; though hewas white and trembling. 

"What about the warders?" I asked again, to change the subject, for Ibegan to feel that I had supped full on horrors. 

"Some of them are kind, " he sighed. "The one that brought me in here isso kind to me. I should like to do something for him, when I get out. He's quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things;but some of them at Wandsworth were brutes. .. . I will not think of themagain. I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open themagain: I dare not open them, " he cried pitifully. 

"But you ought to tell it all, " I said, "that's perhaps the purpose youare here for: the ultimate reason. "

"Oh, no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to comehere and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don'tbelieve you could do it; I don't believe anybody would be strong enough. Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone's strength. Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death. That's what two years' hard labour means. It's not the labour that'shard. It's the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard: theybreak you down body and soul. And if you resist, they drive youcrazy. .. . But, please! don't say I said anything; you've promised, youknow you have: you'll remember: won't you!"

I felt guilty: his insistence, his gasping fear showed me how terriblyhe must have suffered. He was beside himself with dread. I ought to havevisited him sooner. I changed the subject. 

"You shall have writing materials and your books, Oscar. Force yourselfto write. You are looking better than you used to look; your eyes arebrighter, your face clearer. " The old smile came back into his eyes, thedeathless humour. 

"I've had a rest cure, Frank, " he said, and smiled feebly. 

"You should give record of this life as far as you can, and of all itsinfluences on you. You have conquered, you know. Write the names of theinhuman brutes on their foreheads in vitriol, as Dante did for alltime. "

"No, no, I cannot: I will not: I want to live and forget. I could not, Idare not, I have not Dante's strength, nor his bitterness; I am a Greekborn out of due time. " He had said the true word at last. 

"I will come again and see you, " I replied. "Is there nothing else I cando? I hear your wife has seen you. I hope you have made it up with her?"

"She tried to be kind to me, Frank, " he said in a dull voice, "she waskind, I suppose. She must have suffered; I'm sorry. .. . " One felt he hadno sorrow to spare for others. 

"Is there nothing I can do?" I asked. 

"Nothing, Frank, only if you could get me books and writing materials, if I could be allowed to use them really! But you won't say anything Ihave said to you, you promise me you won't?"

"I promise, " I replied, "and I shall come back in a short time to seeyou again. I think you will be better then. .. . 

"Don't dread the coming out; you have friends who will work for you, great allies--" and I told him about Lady Dorothy Nevill at Mrs. Jeune'slunch. 

"Isn't she a dear old lady?" he cried, "charming, brilliant, humancreature! She might have stepped out of a page of Thackeray, onlyThackeray never wrote a page quite dainty and charming enough. He camenear it in his 'Esmond. ' Oh, I remember you don't like the book, but itis beautifully written, Frank, in beautiful simple rhythmic English. Itsings itself to the ear. Lady Dorothy" (how he loved the title!) "wasalways kind to me, but London is horrible. I could not live in Londonagain. I must go away out of England. Do you remember talking to me, Frank, of France?" and he put both his hands on my shoulders, whiletears ran down his face, and sighs broke from him. "Beautiful France, the one country in the world where they care for humane ideals and thehumane life. Ah! if only I had gone with you to France, " and the tearspoured down his cheeks and our hands met convulsively. 

"I'm glad to see you looking so well, " I began again. "Books you shallhave; for God's sake keep your heart up, and I will come back and seeyou, and don't forget you have good friends outside; lots of us!"

"Thank you, Frank; but take care, won't you, and remember your promisenot to tell. "

I nodded in assent and went to the door. The warder came in. 

"The interview is over, " I said; "will you take me downstairs?"

"If you will not mind sitting here, sir, " he said, "for a minute. I musttake him back first. "

"I have been telling my friend, " said Oscar to the warder, "how good youhave been to me, " and he turned and went, leaving with me the memory ofhis eyes and unforgettable smile; but I noticed as he disappeared thathe was thin, and looked hunched up and bowed, in the ugly ill-fittingprison livery. I took out a bank note and put it under the blottingpaper that had been placed on the table for me. In two or three minutesthe warder came back, and as I left the room I thanked him for beingkind to my friend, and told him how kindly Oscar had spoken of him. 

"He has no business here, sir, " the warder said. "He's no more like oneof our reg'lars than a canary is like one of them cocky little spadgers. Prison ain't meant for such as him, and he ain't meant for prison. He'sthat soft, sir, you see, and affeckshunate. He's more like a woman, heis; you hurt 'em without meaning to. I don't care what they say, I likeshim; and he do talk beautiful, sir, don't he?"

"Indeed he does, " I said, "the best talker in the world. I want you tolook in the pad on the table. I have left a note there for you. "

"Not for me, sir, I could not take it; no, sir, please not, " he cried ina hurried, fear-struck voice. "You've forgotten something, sir, comeback and get it, sir, do, please. I daren't. "

In spite of my remonstrance he took me back and I had to put the note inmy pocket. 

"I could not, you know, sir, I was not kind to him for that. " His mannerchanged; he seemed hurt. 

I told him I was sure of it, sure, and begged him to believe, that if Iwere able to do anything for him, at any time, I'd be glad, and gave himmy address. He was not even listening--an honest, good man, full of themilk of human kindness. How kind deeds shine starlike in this prison ofa world. That warder and Sir Ruggles Brise each in his own place: suchmen are the salt of the English world; better are not to be found onearth. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Some years ago _The Daily Chronicle_ proved that though the generalstandard of living is lower in Germany and in France than in England;yet the prison food in France and especially in Germany is far betterthan in England and the treatment of the prisoners far more humane. 

[2] He was referring, I suppose, to the solitary confinement in a darkcell, which English ingenuity has invented and according to all accountsis as terrible as any of the tortures of the past. For those tortureswere all physical, whereas the modern Englishman addresses himself tothe brain and nerves, and finds the fear of madness more terrifying thanthe fear of pain. What a pity it is that Mr. Justice Wills did not knowtwenty-four hours of it, just twenty-four hours to teach him what"adequate punishment" for sensual self-indulgence means, and adequatepunishment, too, for inhuman cruelty. 

CHAPTER XVIII

On my return to London I saw Sir Ruggles Brise. No one could have shownme warmer sympathy, or more discriminating comprehension. I made myreport to him and left the matter in his hands with perfect confidence. I took care to describe Oscar's condition to his friends while assuringthem that his circumstances would soon be bettered. A little later Iheard that the governor of the prison had been changed, that Oscar hadgot books and writing materials, and was allowed to have the gas burningin his cell to a late hour when it was turned down but not out. In fact, from that time on he was treated with all the kindness possible, andsoon we heard that he was bearing the confinement and discipline betterthan could have been expected. Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise had evidentlysettled the difficulty in the most humane spirit. 

Later still I was told that Oscar had begun to write "De Profundis" inprison, and I was very hopeful about that too: no news could have givenme greater pleasure. It seemed to me certain that he would justifyhimself to men by turning the punishment into a stepping-stone. And inthis belief when the time came I ventured to call on Sir Ruggles Brisewith another petition. 

"Surely, " I said, "Oscar will not be imprisoned for the full term;surely four or five months for good conduct will be remitted?"

Sir Ruggles Brise listened sympathetically, but warned me at once thatany remission was exceptional; however, he would let me know what couldbe done, if I would call again in a week. Much to my surprise, he didnot seem certain even about the good conduct. 

I returned at the end of the week, and had another long talk with him. He told me that good conduct meant, in prison parlance, absence ofpunishment, and Oscar had been punished pretty often. Of course hisoffenses were minor offenses; nothing serious; childish faults indeedfor the most part: he was often talking, and he was often late in themorning; his cell was not kept so well as it might be, and so forth;peccadilloes, all; yet a certificate of "good conduct" depended on suchtrifling observances. In face of Oscar's record Sir Ruggles Brise didnot think that the sentence would be easily lessened. I wasthunder-struck. But then no rules to me are sacrosanct; indeed, they areonly tolerable because of the exceptions. I had such a high opinion ofRuggles Brise--his kindness and sense of fair play--that I ventured toshow him my whole mind on the matter. 

"Oscar Wilde, " I said to him, "is just about to face life again: he ismore than half reconciled to his wife; he has begun a book, isshouldering the burden. A little encouragement now and I believe he willdo better things than he has ever done. I am convinced that he has farbigger things in him than we have seen yet. But he is extraordinarilysensitive and extraordinarily vain. The danger is that he may befrightened and blighted by the harshness and hatred of the world. He mayshrink into himself and do nothing if the wind be not tempered a littlefor him. A hint of encouragement now, the feeling that men like yourselfthink him worthful and deserving of special kindly treatment, and I feelcertain he will do great things. I really believe it is in your hands tosave a man of extraordinary talent, and get the best out of him, if youcare to do it. "

"Of course I care to do it, " he cried. "You cannot doubt that, and I seeexactly what you mean; but it will not be easy. "

"Won't you see what can be done?" I persisted. "Put your mind todiscover how it should be done, how the Home Secretary may be induced toremit the last few months of Wilde's sentence. "

After a little while he replied:

"You must believe that the authorities are quite willing to help in anygood work, more than willing, and I am sure I speak for the HomeSecretary as well as for myself; but it is for you to give us somereason for acting--a reason that could be avowed and defended. "

I did not at first catch his drift; so I persevered:

"You admit that the reason exists, that it would be a good thing tofavour Wilde, then why not do it?"

"We live, " he said, "under parliamentary rule. Suppose the question wereasked in the House, and I think it very likely in the present state ofpublic opinion that the question would be asked: what should we answer?It would not be an avowable reason that we hoped Wilde would write newplays and books, would it? That reason ought to be sufficient, I grantyou; but, you see yourself, it would not be so regarded. "

"You are right, I suppose, " I had to admit. "But if I got you a petitionfrom men of letters, asking you to release Wilde for his health's sake:would that do?"

Sir Ruggles Brise jumped at the suggestion. 

"Certainly, " he exclaimed, "if some men of letters, men of position, wrote asking that Wilde's sentence should be diminished by three orfour months on account of his health, I think it would have the besteffect. "

"I will see Meredith at once, " I said, "and some others. How many namesshould I get?"

"If you have Meredith, " he replied, "you don't need many others. A dozenwould do, or fewer if you find a dozen too many. "

"I don't think I shall meet with any difficulty, " I replied, "but I willlet you know. "

"You will find it harder than you think, " he concluded, "but if you getone or two great names the rest may follow. In any case one or two goodnames will make it easier for you. "

Naturally I thanked him for his kindness and went away absolutelycontent. I had never set myself a task which seemed simpler. Meredithcould not be more merciless than a Royal Commission. I returned to myoffice in _The Saturday Review_ and got the Royal Commission report onthis sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard labour. TheCommission recommended that it should be wiped off the Statute Book astoo severe. I drafted a little petition as colourless as possible:

"In view of the fact that the punishment of two years' imprisonment withhard labour has been condemned by a Royal Commission as too severe, andinasmuch as Mr. Wilde has been distinguished by his work in letters andis now, we hear, suffering in health, we, your petitioners, pray--andso forth and so on. "

I got this printed, and then sat down to write to Meredith asking when Icould see him on the matter. I wanted his signature first to be printedunderneath the petition, and then issue it. To my astonishment Meredithdid not answer at once, and when I pressed him and set forth the factshe wrote to me that he could not do what I wished. I wrote again, begging him to let me see him on the matter. For the first time in mylife he refused to see me: he wrote to me to say that nothing I couldurge would move him, and it would therefore only be painful to both ofus to find ourselves in conflict. 

Nothing ever surprised me more than this attitude of Meredith's. I knewhis poetry pretty well, and knew how severe he was on every sensualweakness perhaps because it was his own pitfall. I knew too what afighter he was at heart and how he loved the virile virtues; but Ithought I knew the man, knew his tender kindliness of heart, the fountsof pity in him, and I felt certain I could count on him for any officeof human charity or generosity. But no, he was impenetrable, hard. Hetold me long afterwards that he had rather a low opinion of Wilde'scapacities, instinctive, deep-rooted contempt, too, for the showman inhim, and an absolute abhorrence of his vice. 

"That vile, sensual self-indulgence puts back the hands of the clock, "he said, "and should not be forgiven. "

For the life of me I could never forgive Meredith; never afterwards washe of any importance to me. He had always been to me a standard bearerin the eternal conflict, a leader in the Liberation War of Humanity, andhere I found him pitiless to another who had been wounded on the sameside in the great struggle: it seemed to me appalling. True, Wilde hadnot been wounded in fighting for us; true, he had fallen out and come togrief, as a drunkard might. But after all he had been fighting on theright side: had been a quickening intellectual influence: it wasdreadful to pass him on the wayside and allow him callously to bleed todeath. It was revoltingly cruel! The foremost Englishman of his timeunable even to understand Christ's example, much less reach his height!

This refusal of Meredith's not only hurt me, but almost destroyed myhope, though it did not alter my purpose. I wanted a figurehead for mypetition, and the figurehead I had chosen I could not get. I began towonder and doubt. I next approached a very different man, the lateProfessor Churton Collins, a great friend of mine, who, in spite of analmost pedantic rigour of mind and character, had in him at bottom acurious spring of sympathy--a little pool of pure love for the poets andwriters whom he admired. I got him to dinner and asked him to sign thepetition; he refused, but on grounds other than those taken by Meredith. 

"Of course Wilde ought to get out, " he said, "the sentence was a savageone and showed bitter prejudice; but I have children, and my own way tomake in the world, and if I did this I should be tarred with the Wildebrush. I cannot afford to do it. If he were really a great man I hope Ishould do it, but I don't agree with your estimate of him. I cannotthink I am called upon to bell the British cat in his defence: it hasmany claws and all sharp. "

As soon as he saw the position was unworthy of him, he shifted to newground. 

"If you were justified in coming to me, I should do it; but I am no one;why don't you go to Meredith, Swinburne or Hardy?"

I had to give up the Professor, as well as the poet. I knocked in turnat a great many doors, but all in vain. No one wished to take the odiumon himself. One man, since become celebrated, said he had no position, his name was not good enough for the purpose. Others left my lettersunanswered. Yet another sent a bare acknowledgment saying how sorry hewas, but that public opinion was against Mr. Wilde; with one accordthey all made excuses. .. . 

One day Professor Tyrrell of Trinity College, Dublin, happened to be inmy office, while I was setting forth the difference between men ofletters in France and England as exemplified by this conduct. In Franceamong authors there is a recognised "_esprit de corps_, " whichconstrains them to hold together. For instance when Zola was threatenedwith prosecution for "Nana, " a dozen men like Cherbuliez, Feuillet, Dumas _fils_, who hated his work and regarded it as sensational, tawdry, immoral even, took up the cudgels for him at once; declared that thepolice were not judges of art, and should not interfere with a seriousworkman. All these Frenchmen, though they disliked Zola's work, andbelieved that his popularity was won by a low appeal, still admittedthat he was a force in letters, and stood by him resolutely in spite oftheir own prepossessions and prejudices. But in England the feeling isaltogether more selfish. Everyone consults his own sordid self-interestand is rather glad to see a social favourite come to grief: not a handis stretched out to help him. Suddenly, Tyrrell broke in upon myexposition:

"I don't know whether my name is of any good to you, " he said, "but Iagree with all you have said, and my name might be classed with that ofChurton Collins, though, of course, I've no right to speak forliterature, " and without more ado he signed the petition, adding, "Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin. "

"When you next see Oscar, " he continued, "please tell him that my wifeand I asked after him. We both hold him in grateful memory as a mostbrilliant talker and writer, and a charming fellow to boot. Confusiontake all their English Puritanism. "

Merely living in Ireland tends to make an Englishman more humane; butone name was not enough, and Tyrrell's was the only one I could get. Indespair, and knowing that George Wyndham had had a great liking forOscar, and admiration for his high talent, I asked him to lunch at theSavoy; laid the matter before him, and begged him to give me his name. He refused, and in face of my astonishment he excused himself by sayingthat, as soon as the rumour had reached him of Oscar's intimacy withBosie Douglas, he had asked Oscar whether there was any truth in thescandalous report. 

"You see, " he went on, "Bosie is by way of being a relation of mine, andso I had the right to ask. Oscar gave me his word of honour that therewas nothing but friendship between them. He lied to me, and that I cannever forgive. "

A politician unable to forgive a lie--surely one can hear the mockinglaughter of the gods! I could say nothing to such paltry affectednonsense. Politician-like Wyndham showed me how the wind of popularfeeling blew, and I recognised that my efforts were in vain. 

There is no fellow-feeling among English men of letters; in fact theyhold together less than any other class and, by himself, none of themwished to help a wounded member of the flock. I had to tell Sir RugglesBrise that I had failed. 

I have been informed since that if I had begun by asking Thomas Hardy, Imight have succeeded. I knew Hardy; but never cared greatly for histalent. I daresay if I had had nothing else to do I might have succeededin some half degree. But all these two years I was extremely busy andanxious; the storm clouds in South Africa were growing steadily darkerand my attitude to South African affairs was exceedingly unpopular inLondon. It seemed to me vitally important to prevent England from makingwar on the Boers. I had to abandon the attempt to get Oscar's sentenceshortened, and comfort myself with Sir Ruggles Brise's assurance that hewould be treated with the greatest possible consideration. 

Still, my advocacy had had a good effect. 

Oscar himself has told us what the kindness shown to him in the lastsix months of his prison life really did for him. He writes in _DeProfundis_ that for the first part of his sentence he could only wringhis hands in impotent despair and cry, "What an ending, what anappalling ending!" But when the new spirit of kindness came to him, hecould say with sincerity: "What a beginning, what a wonderfulbeginning!" He sums it all up in these words:

"Had I been released after eighteen months, as I hoped to be, I wouldhave left my prison loathing it and every official in it with abitterness of hatred that would have poisoned my life. I have had sixmonths more of imprisonment, but humanity has been in the prison with usall the time, and now when I go out I shall always remember greatkindnesses that I have received here from almost everybody, and on theday of my release I shall give many thanks to many people, and ask to beremembered by them in turn. "

This is the man whom Mr. Justice Wills addressed as insensible to anyhigh appeal. 

Some time passed before I visited Oscar again. The change in him wasextraordinary. He was light-hearted, gay, and looked better than I hadever seen him: clearly the austerity of prison life suited him. He metme with a jest:

"It is you, Frank!" he cried as if astonished, "always original! Youcome back to prison of your own free-will!"

He declared that the new governor--Major Nelson[3] was his name--hadbeen as kind as possible to him. He had not had a punishment for months, and "Oh, Frank, the joy of reading when you like and writing as youplease--the delight of living again!" He was so infinitely improved thathis talk delighted me. 

"What books have you?" I asked. 

"I thought I should like the 'Oedipus Rex, '" he replied gravely; "butI could not read it. It all seemed unreal to me. Then I thought of St. Augustine, but he was worse still. The fathers of the Church were stillfurther away from me; they all found it so easy to repent and changetheir lives: it does not seem to me easy. At last I got hold of Dante. Dante was what I wanted. I read the 'Purgatorio' all through, forcedmyself to read it in Italian to get the full savour and significance ofit. Dante, too, had been in the depths and drunk the bitter lees ofdespair. I shall want a little library when I come out, a library of ascore of books. I wonder if you will help me to get it. I want Flaubert, Stevenson, Baudelaire, Maeterlinck, Dumas _père_, Keats, Marlowe, Chatterton, Anatole France, Théophile Gautier, Dante, Goethe, Meredith's poems, and his 'Egoist, ' the Song of Solomon, too, Job, and, of course, the Gospels. "

"I shall be delighted to get them for you, " I said, "if you will send methe list. By the by, I hear that you have been reconciled to your wife;is that true? I should be glad to know it's true. "

"I hope it will be all right, " he said gravely, "she is very good andkind. I suppose you have heard, " he went on, "that my mother died sinceI came here, and that leaves a great gap in my life. .. . I always had thegreatest admiration and love for my mother. She was a great woman, Frank, a perfect idealist. My father got into trouble once in Dublin, perhaps you have heard about it?"

"Oh, yes, " I said, "I have read the case. " (It is narrated in the firstchapter of this book. )

"Well, Frank, she stood up in court and bore witness for him withperfect serenity, with perfect trust and without a shadow of commonwomanly jealousy. She could not believe that the man she loved could beunworthy, and her conviction was so complete that it communicated itselfto the jury: her trust was so noble that they became infected by it, andbrought him in guiltless. [4] Extraordinary, was it not? She was quitesure too of the verdict. It is only noble souls who have that assuranceand serenity. .. . 

[Illustration: "Speranza": Lady Wilde as a Young Woman]

"When my father was dying it was the same thing. I always see hersitting there by his bedside with a sort of dark veil over her head:quite silent, quite calm. Nothing ever troubled her optimism. Shebelieved that only good can happen to us. When death came to the man sheloved, she accepted it with the same serenity and when my sister diedshe bore it in the same high way. My sister was a wonderful creature, sogay and high-spirited, 'embodied sunshine, ' I used to call her. 

"When we lost her, my mother simply took it that it was best for thechild. Women have infinitely more courage than men, don't you think? Ihave never known anyone with such perfect faith as my mother. She wasone of the great figures of the world. What she must have suffered overmy sentence I don't dare to think: I'm sure she endured agonies. She hadgreat hopes of me. When she was told that she was going to die, and thatshe could not see me, for I was not allowed to go to her, [5] she said, 'May the prison help him, ' and turned her face to the wall. 

"She felt about the prison as you do, Frank, and really I think you areboth right; it has helped me. There are things I see now that I neversaw before. I see what pity means. I thought a work of art should bebeautiful and joyous. But now I see that that ideal is insufficient, even shallow; a work of art must be founded on pity; a book or poemwhich has no pity in it, had better not be written. .. . 

"I shall be very lonely when I come out, and I can't stand lonelinessand solitude; it is intolerable to me, hateful, I have had too much ofit. .. . 

"You see, Frank, I am breaking with the past altogether. I am going towrite the history of it. I am going to tell how I was tempted and fell, how I was pushed by the man I loved into that dreadful quarrel of his, driven forward to the fight with his father and then left to sufferalone. .. . 

"That is the story I am now going to tell. That is the book[6] of pityand of love which I am writing now--a terrible book. .. . 

"I wonder would you publish it, Frank? I should like it to appear in_The Saturday_. "

"I'd be delighted to publish anything of yours, " I replied, "and happierstill to publish something to show that you have at length chosen thebetter part and are beginning a new life. I'd pay you, too, whatever thework turns out to be worth to me; in any case much more than I payBernard Shaw or anyone else. " I said this to encourage him. 

"I'm sure of that, " he answered. "I'll send you the book as soon as I'vefinished it. I think you'll like it"--and there for the moment thematter ended. 

At length I felt sure that all would be well with him. How could I helpfeeling sure? His mind was richer and stronger than it had ever been;and he had broken with all the dark past. I was overjoyed to believethat he would yet do greater things than he had ever done, and thisbelief and determination were in him too, as anyone can see on readingwhat he wrote at this time in prison:

"There is before me so much to do that I would regard it as a terribletragedy if I died before I was allowed to complete at any rate a littleof it. I see new developments in art and life, each one of which is afresh mode of perfection. I long to live so that I can explore what isno less than a new world to me. Do you want to know what this new worldis? I think you can guess what it is. It is the world in which I havebeen living. Sorrow, then, and all that it teaches one, is my newworld. .. . 

"I used to live entirely for pleasure. I shunned suffering and sorrow ofevery kind. I hated both. .. . "

Through the prison bars Oscar had begun to see how mistaken he had been, how much greater, and more salutary to the soul, suffering is thanpleasure. 

"Out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a childor a star there is pain. "

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross. "

[4] I give Oscar's view of the trial just to show how his romanticimagination turned disagreeable facts into pleasant fiction. Oscar couldonly have heard of the trial, and perhaps his mother was hisinformant--which adds to the interest of the story. 

[5] Permission to visit a dying mother is accorded in France, even tomurderers. The English pretend to be more religious than the French; butare assuredly less humane. 

[6] "De Profundis. " What Oscar called "the terrible part" of thebook--the indictment of Lord Alfred Douglas--has since been read out inCourt and will be found in the Appendix to this volume. 

CHAPTER XIX

Shortly before he came out of prison, one of Oscar's intimates told mehe was destitute, and begged me to get him some clothes. I took the nameof his tailor and ordered two suits. The tailor refused to take theorder: he was not going to make clothes for Oscar Wilde. I could nottrust myself to talk to the man and therefore sent my assistant editorand friend, Mr. Blanchamp, to have it out with him. The tradesman soulyielded to the persuasiveness of cash in advance. I sent Oscar theclothes and a cheque, and shortly after his release got a letter[7]thanking me. 

A little later I heard on good authority a story which Oscar afterwardsconfirmed, that when he left Reading Gaol the correspondent of anAmerican paper offered him £1, 000 for an interview dealing with hisprison life and experiences, but he felt it beneath his dignity to takehis sufferings to market. He thought it better to borrow than to earn. He is partly to be excused, perhaps, when one remembers that he hadstill some pounds left of the large sums given him before hiscondemnation, by Miss S----, Ross, More Adey, and others. Still hisrefusal of such a sum as that offered by the New York paper shows howutterly contemptuous he was of money, even at a moment when one wouldhave thought money would have been his chief preoccupation. He alwayslived in the day and rather heedlessly. 

As soon as he left prison he crossed with some friends to France, andwent to stay at the Hotel de la Plage at Berneval, a quiet littlevillage near Dieppe. M. André Gide, who called on him there almost assoon as he arrived, gives a fair mental picture of him at this time. Hetells how delighted he was to find in him the "Oscar Wilde of old, " nolonger the sensualist puffed out with pride and good living, but "thesweet Wilde" of the days before 1891. "I found myself taken back, nottwo years, " he says, "but four or five. There was the same dreamy look, the same amused smile, the same voice. "

He told M. Gide that prison had completely changed him, had taught himthe meaning of pity. "You know, " he went on, "how fond I used to be of'Madame Bovary, ' but Flaubert would not admit pity into his work, andthat is why it has a petty and restrained character about it. It is thesense of pity by means of which a work gains in expanse, and by whichit opens up a boundless horizon. Do you know, my dear fellow, it waspity which prevented my killing myself? During the first six months inprison I was dreadfully unhappy, so utterly miserable that I wanted tokill myself; but what kept me from doing so was looking at the others, and seeing that they were as unhappy as I was, and feeling sorry forthem. Oh dear! what a wonderful thing pity is, and I never knew it. "

He was speaking in a low voice without any excitement. 

"Have you ever learned how wonderful a thing pity is? For my part Ithank God every night, yes, on my knees I thank God for having taught itto me. I went into prison with a heart of stone, thinking only of my ownpleasure; but now my heart is utterly broken--pity has entered into myheart. I have learned now that pity is the greatest and the mostbeautiful thing in the world. And that is why I cannot bear ill-willtowards those who caused my suffering and those who condemned me; no, nor to anyone, because without them I should not have known all that. Alfred Douglas writes me terrible letters. He says he does notunderstand me, that he does not understand that I do not wish everyoneill, and that everyone has been horrid to me. No, he does not understandme. He cannot understand me any more. But I keep on telling him that inevery letter: we cannot follow the same road. He has his and it isbeautiful--I have mine. His is that of Alcibiades; mine is now that ofSt. Francis of Assisi. "

How much of this is sincere and how much merely imagined and stated inorder to incarnate the new ideal to perfection would be hard to say. Thetruth is not so saintly simple as the christianised Oscar would have usbelieve. The unpublished portions of "De Profundis" which were read outin the Douglas-Ransome trial prove, what all his friends know, thatOscar Wilde found it impossible to forgive or forget what seemed to himpersonal ill-treatment. There are beautiful pages in "De Profundis, "pages of sweetest Christlike resignation and charity and no doubt in acertain mood Oscar was sincere in writing them. But there was anothermood in him, more vital and more enduring, if not so engaging, a mood inwhich he saw himself as one betrayed and sacrificed and abandoned, andthen he attributed his ruin wholly to his friend and did not hesitate tospeak of him as the "Judas" whose shallow selfishness and imperiousill-temper and unfulfilled promises of monetary help had driven a greatman to disaster. 

That unpublished portion of "De Profundis" is in essence, frombeginning to end, one long curse of Lord Alfred Douglas, an indictmentapparently impartial, particularly at first; but in reality a bitter andmerciless accusation, showing in Oscar Wilde a curious want of sympathyeven with the man he said he loved. Those who would know Oscar Wilde ashe really was will read that piece of rhetoric with care enough tonotice that he reiterates the charge of shallow selfishness with suchvenom, that he discovers his own colossal egotism and essential hardnessof heart. "Love, " we are told, "suffereth long and is kind . .. Bearethall things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth allthings"--that sweet, generous, all-forgiving tenderness of love was notin the pagan, Oscar Wilde, and therefore even his deepest passion neverwon to complete reconciliation and ultimate redemption. 

In this same talk with M. Gide, Oscar is reported to have said that hehad known beforehand that a catastrophe was unavoidable; "there was butone end possible. .. . That state of things could not last; there had tobe some end to it. "

This view I believe is Gide's and not Oscar's. In any case I am surethat my description of him before the trials as full of insolentself-assurance is the truer truth. Of course he must have hadforebodings; he was warned as I've related, again and again; but hetook character-colour from his associates and he met Queensberry's firstattempts at attack with utter disdain. He did not realise his danger atall. Gide reports him more correctly as adding:

"Prison has completely changed me. I was relying on it for that--Douglasis terrible. He cannot understand that--cannot understand that I am nottaking up the same existence again. He accuses the others of havingchanged me. "

I may publish here part of a letter of a prison warder which Mr. StuartMason reproduced in his excellent little book on Oscar Wilde. He says:

"No more beautiful life had any man lived, no more beautiful life couldany man live than Oscar Wilde lived during the short period I knew himin prison. He wore upon his face an eternal smile; sunshine was on hisface, sunshine of some sort must have been in his heart. People say hewas not sincere: he was the very soul of sincerity when I knew him. Ifhe did not continue that life after he left prison, then the forces ofevil must have been too strong for him. But he tried, he honestly tried, and in prison he succeeded. "

All this seems to me in the main, true. Oscar's gay vivacity would haveastonished any stranger. Besides, the regular hours and scant plain foodof prison had improved his health and the solitude and suffering hadlent him a deeper emotional life. But there was an intense bitterness inhim, a profound underlying sense of injury which came continually topassionate expression. Yet as soon as the miserable petty persecution ofthe prison was lifted from him, all the joyous gaiety and fun of hisnature bubbled up irresistibly. There was no contradiction in thiscomplexity. A man can hold in himself a hundred conflicting passions andimpulses without confusion. At this time the dominant chord in Oscar waspity for others. 

To my delight the world had evidence of this changed Oscar Wilde in avery short time. On May 28th, a few days after he left prison, thereappeared in _The Daily Chronicle_ a letter more than two columns inlength, pleading for the kindlier treatment of little children inEnglish prisons. The letter was written because Warder Martin[8] ofReading prison had been dismissed by the Commissioners for the dreadfulcrime of "having given some sweet biscuits to a little hungry child. ". .. 

I must quote a few paragraphs of this letter; because it shows howprison had deepened Oscar Wilde, how his own suffering had made him, asShakespeare says, "pregnant to good pity, " and also because it tells uswhat life was like in an English prison in our time. Oscar wrote:

"I saw the three children myself on the Monday preceding my release. They had just been convicted, and were standing in a row in the centralhall in their prison dress carrying their sheets under their arms, previous to their being sent to the cells allotted to them. .. . They werequite small children, the youngest--the one to whom the warder gave thebiscuits--being a tiny chap, for whom they had evidently been unable tofind clothes small enough to fit. I had, of course, seen many childrenin prison during the two years during which I was myself confined. Wandsworth prison, especially, contained always a large number ofchildren. But the little child I saw on the afternoon of Monday, the17th, at Reading, was tinier than any one of them. I need not say howutterly distressed I was to see these children at Reading, for I knewthe treatment in store for them. The cruelty that is practised by dayand night on children in English prisons is incredible except to thosethat have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system. 

"People nowadays do not understand what cruelty is. .. . Ordinary crueltyis simply stupidity. 

"The prison treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people notunderstanding the peculiar psychology of the child's nature. A child canunderstand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent, orguardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What itcannot understand is a punishment inflicted by society. It cannotrealise what society is. .. . 

"The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless. I remember once inReading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cellopposite mine a small boy. Two warders--not unkindly men--were talkingto him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him someuseful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the otherwas standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheerterror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The nextmorning I heard him at breakfast time crying, and calling to be let out. His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deepvoice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet. Yet he was noteven convicted of whatever little offence he had been charged with. Hewas simply on remand. That I knew by his wearing his own clothes, whichseemed neat enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes. This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorantclass as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhapsremit whatever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call this 'notsending a child to prison. ' It is of course a stupid view on their part. To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after convictionis not a subtlety of position he can comprehend. To him the horriblething is to be there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be ahorrible thing for him to be there at all. 

"This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grownman also, is of course intensified beyond power of expression by thesolitary cellular system of our prisons. Every child is confined to itscell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. This is theappalling thing. To shut up a child in a dimly lit cell for twenty-threehours out of the twenty-four is an example of the cruelty of stupidity. If an individual, parent or guardian, did this to a child, he would beseverely punished. .. . 

"The second thing from which a child suffers in prison is hunger. Thefood that is given to it consists of a piece of usually badly bakedprison bread and a tin of water for breakfast at half past seven. Attwelve o'clock it gets dinner, composed of a tin of coarse Indian mealstirabout, and at half past five it gets a piece of dry bread and a tinof water for its supper. This diet in the case of a strong man is alwaysproductive of illness of some kind, chiefly, of course, diarrhoea, with its attendant weakness. In fact, in a big prison, astringentmedicines are served out regularly by the warders as a matter of course. A child is as a rule incapable of eating the food at all. Anyone whoknows anything about children knows how easily a child's digestion isupset by a fit of crying, or trouble and mental distress of any kind. Achild who has been crying all day long and perhaps half the night, in alonely, dimly lit cell, and is preyed upon by terror, simply cannot eatfood of this coarse, horrible kind. In the case of the little child towhom Warder Martin gave the biscuits, the child was crying with hungeron Tuesday morning, and utterly unable to eat the bread and water servedto it for breakfast. 

"Martin went out after the breakfast had been served, and bought the fewsweet biscuits for the child rather than see it starving. It was abeautiful action on his part, and was so recognised by the child, who, utterly unconscious of the regulation of the Prison Board, told one ofthe senior warders how kind this junior warder had been to him. Theresult was, of course, a report and a dismissal. [9]

"I know Martin extremely well, and I was under his charge for the lastseven weeks of my imprisonment. .. . I was struck by the singular kindnessand humanity of the way in which he spoke to me and to the otherprisoners. Kind words are much in prison, and a pleasant 'good-morning'or 'good-evening' will make one as happy as one can be in prison. He wasalways gentle and considerate. .. . 

"A great deal has been talked and written lately about the contaminatinginfluence of prison on young children. What is said is quite true. Achild is utterly contaminated by prison life. But this contaminatinginfluence is not that of the prisoners. It is that of the whole prisonsystem--of the governor, the chaplain, the warders, the solitary cell, the isolation, the revolting food, the rules of the PrisonCommissioners, the mode of discipline, as it is termed, of the life. 

"Of course no child under fourteen years of age should be sent to prisonat all. It is an absurdity, and, like many absurdities, of absolutelytragical results. .. . "

This letter, I am informed, brought about some improvement in thetreatment of young children in British prisons. But in regard to adultsthe British prison is still the torture chamber it was in Wilde's time;prisoners are still treated more brutally there than anywhere else inthe civilised world; the food is the worst in Europe, insufficientindeed to maintain health; in many cases men are only saved from deathby starvation through being sent to the infirmary. Though these factsare well known, _Punch_, the pet organ of the British middle-class, wasnot ashamed a little while ago to make a mock of some suggested reform, by publishing a picture of a British convict, with the villainous faceof a Bill Sykes, lying on a sofa in his cell smoking a cigar withchampagne at hand. This is not altogether due to stupidity, as Oscartried to believe, but to reasoned selfishness. _Punch_ and the class forwhich it caters would like to believe that many convicts are unfit tolive, whereas the truth is that a good many of them are superior inhumanity to the people who punish and slander them. 

While waiting for his wife to join him, Oscar rented a little house, theChâlet Bourgeat, about two hundred yards away from the hotel atBerneval, and furnished it. Here he spent the whole of the summerwriting, bathing, and talking to the few devoted friends who visitedhim from time to time. Never had he been so happy: never in such perfecthealth. He was full of literary projects; indeed, no period of his wholelife was so fruitful in good work. He was going to write some Biblicalplays; one entitled "Pharaoh" first, and then one called "Ahab andJezebel, " which he pronounced Isabelle. Deeper problems, too, were muchin his mind: he was already at work on "The Ballad of Reading Gaol, " butbefore coming to that let me first show how happy the song-bird was andhow divinely he sang when the dreadful cage was opened and he wasallowed to use his wings in the heavenly sunshine. 

Here is a letter from him shortly after his release which is one of themost delightful things he ever wrote. Fitly enough it was addressed tohis friend of friends, Robert Ross, and I can only say that I amextremely obliged to Ross for allowing me to publish it:

Hotel de la Plage. Berneval, near Dieppe, Monday night, May 31st (1897). 

My dearest Robbie, I have decided that the only way in which to get boots properly is to goto France to receive them. The Douane charged 3 francs. How could youfrighten me as you did? The next time you order boots please come toDieppe to get them sent to you. It is the only way and it will be anexcuse for seeing you. 

I am going to-morrow on a pilgrimage. I always wanted to be a pilgrim, and I have decided to start early to-morrow to the shrine of Notre Damede Liesse. Do you know what Liesse is? It is an old word for joy. Isuppose the same as Letizia, Lætitia. I just heard to-night of theshrine or chapel, by chance, as you would say, from the sweet woman ofthe auberge, who wants me to live always at Berneval. She says NotreDame de Liesse is wonderful, and helps everyone to the secret of joy--Ido not know how long it will take me to get to the shrine, as I mustwalk. But, from what she tells me, it will take at least six or sevenminutes to get there, and as many to come back. In fact the chapel ofNotre Dame de Liesse is just fifty yards from the Hotel. Isn't itextraordinary? I intend to start after I have had my coffee, and then tobathe. Need I say that this is a miracle? I wanted to go on apilgrimage, and I find the little grey stone chapel of Our Lady of Joyis brought to me. It has probably been waiting for me all these purpleyears of pleasure, and now it comes to meet me with Liesse as itsmessage. I simply don't know what to say. I wish you were not so hard topoor heretics, [10] and would admit that even for the sheep who has noshepherd there is a Stella Maris to guide it home. But you and More, especially More, treat me as a Dissenter. It is very painful and quiteunjust. 

Yesterday I attended Mass at 10 o'clock and afterwards bathed. So I wentinto the water without being a pagan. The consequence was that I was nottempted by either sirens or mermaidens, or any of the green-hairedfollowing of Glaucus. I really think that this is a remarkable thing. Inmy Pagan days the sea was always full of Tritons blowing conchs, andother unpleasant things. Now it is quite different. And yet you treat meas the President of Mansfield College; and after I had canonised youtoo. 

Dear boy, I wish you would tell me if your religion makes you happy. Youconceal your religion from me in a monstrous way. You treat it likewriting in the _Saturday Review_ for Pollock, or dining in WardourStreet off the fascinating dish that is served with tomatoes and makesmen mad. [11] I know it is useless asking you, so don't tell me. 

I felt an outcast in Chapel yesterday--not really, but a little inexile. I met a dear farmer in a corn field and he gave me a seat on hisbanc in church: so I was quite comfortable. He now visits me twice aday, and as he has no children, and is rich, I have made him promise toadopt _three_--two boys and a girl. I told him that if he wanted them, he would find them. He said he was afraid that they would turn outbadly. I told him everyone did that. He really has promised to adoptthree orphans. He is now filled with enthusiasm at the idea. He is to goto the _Curé_ and talk to him. He told me that his own father had fallendown in a fit one day as they were talking together, and that he hadcaught him in his arms, and put him to bed, where he died, and that hehimself had often thought how dreadful it was that if he had a fit therewas no one to catch him in his arms. It is quite clear that he mustadopt orphans, is it not?

I feel that Berneval is to be my home. I really do. Notre Dame de Liessewill be sweet to me, if I go on my knees to her, and she will advise me. It is extraordinary being brought here by a white horse that was anative of the place, and knew the road, and wanted to see its parents, now of advanced years. It is also extraordinary that I knew Bernevalexisted and was arranged for me. 

M. Bonnet[12] wants to build me a Châlet, 1, 000 metres of ground (Idon't know how much that is--but I suppose about 100 miles) and a Châletwith a studio, a balcony, a salle-à-manger, a huge kitchen, and threebedrooms--a view of the sea, and trees--all for 12, 000 francs--£480. IfI can write a play I am going to have it begun. Fancy one's own lovelyhouse and grounds in France for £480. No rent of any kind. Pray considerthis, and approve, if you think well. Of course, not till I have done myplay. 

An old gentleman lives here in the hotel. He dines alone in his room, and then sits in the sun. He came here for two days and has stayed twoyears. His sole sorrow is that there is no theatre. Monsieur Bonnet is alittle heartless about this, and says that as the old gentleman goes tobed at 8 o'clock a theatre would be of no use to him. The old gentlemansays he only goes to bed at 8 o'clock because there is no theatre. Theyargued the point yesterday for an hour. I sided with the old gentleman, but Logic sides with Monsieur Bonnet, I believe. 

I had a sweet letter from the Sphinx. [13] She gives me a delightfulaccount of Ernest[14] subscribing to Romeike while his divorce suit wasrunning, and not being pleased with some of the notices. Considering thegrowing appreciation of Ibsen I must say that I am surprised the noticeswere not better, but nowadays everybody is jealous of everyone else, except, of course, husband and wife. I think I shall keep this lastremark of mine for my play. 

Have you got my silver spoon[15] from Reggie? You got my silver brushesout of Humphreys, [16] who is bald, so you might easily get my spoon outof Reggie, who has so many, or used to have. You know my crest is on it. It is a bit of Irish silver, and I don't want to lose it. There is anexcellent substitute called Britannia metal, very much liked at theAdelphi and elsewhere. Wilson Barrett writes, "I prefer it to silver. "It would suit dear Reggie admirably. Walter Besant writes, "I use noneother. " Mr. Beerbohm Tree also writes, "Since I have tried it I am adifferent actor; my friends hardly recognise me. " So there is obviouslya demand for it. 

I am going to write a Political Economy in my heavier moments. The firstlaw I lay down is, "Whenever there exists a demand, there is _no_supply. " This is the only law that explains the extraordinary contrastbetween the soul of man and man's surroundings. Civilisations continuebecause people hate them. A modern city is the exact opposite of whateveryone wants. Nineteenth-century dress is the result of our horror ofthe style. The tall hat will last as long as people dislike it. 

Dear Robbie, I wish you would be a little more considerate, and not keepme up so late talking to you. It is very flattering to me and all that, but you should remember that I need rest. Good-night. You will find somecigarettes and some flowers by your bedside. Coffee is served below at 8o'clock. Do you mind? If it is too early for you I don't at all mindlying in bed an extra hour. I hope you will sleep well. You should asLloyd is not on the Verandah. [17]

TUESDAY MORNING, 9. 30. 

The sea and sky are opal--no horrid drawing master's line betweenthem--just one fishing boat, going slowly, and drawing the wind afterit. I am going to bathe. 

6 O'CLOCK. 

Bathed and have seen a Châlet here which I wish to take for theseason--quite charming--a splendid view: a large writing room, a diningroom, and three lovely bedrooms--besides servants' rooms and also a hugebalcony. 

[In this blank space he had I don't know the scaleroughly drawn a ground plan of the drawing, but theof the imagined Châlet. ] rooms are larger than the plan is. 

1. Salle-à-manger. All on ground floor2. Salon. With steps from balcony3. Balcony. To ground. 

The rent for the season or year is, what do you think?--£32. 

Of course I must have it: I will take my meals here--separate andreserved table: it is within two minutes walk. Do tell me to take it. When you come again your room will be waiting for you. All I need is adomestique. The people here are most kind. 

I made my pilgrimage--the interior of the Chapel is of course a modernhorror--but there is a black image of Notre Dame de Liesse--the chapelis as tiny as an undergraduate's room at Oxford. I hope to get the Curéto celebrate Mass in it soon; as a rule the service is only held therein July and August; but I want to see a Mass quite close. 

There is also another thing I must write to you about. 

I adore this place. The whole country is lovely, and full of forest anddeep meadow. It is simple and healthy. If I live in Paris I may bedoomed to things I don't desire. I am afraid of big towns. Here I get upat 7. 30. I am happy all day. I go to bed at 10. I am frightened ofParis. I want to live here. 

I have seen the "terrain. " It is the best here, and the only one left. Imust build a house. If I could build a châlet for 12, 000francs--£500--and live in a home of my own, how happy I would be. I mustraise the money somehow. It would give me a home, quiet, retired, healthy, and near England. If I live in Egypt I know what my life wouldbe. If I live in the south of Italy I know I should be idle and worse. Iwant to live here. Do think over this and send me over thearchitect. [18] M. Bonnet is excellent and is ready to carry out anyidea. I want a little châlet of wood and plaster walls, the wooden beamsshowing and the white square of plaster diapering the framework--like, Iregret to say--Shakespeare's house--like old English sixteenth-centuryfarmers' houses. So your architect has me waiting for him, as he iswaiting for me. 

Do you think the idea absurd?

I got the _Chronicle_, many thanks. I see the writer onPrince--A. 2. 11. --does not mention my name--foolish of her--it is awoman. 

I, as you, the poem of my days, are away, am forced to write. I havebegun something that I think will be very good. 

I breakfast to-morrow with the Stannards: what a great passionate, splendid writer John Strange Winter is! How little people understand herwork! _Bootle's Baby_ is an "oeuvre symboliste"--it is really only thestyle and the subject that are wrong. Pray never speak lightly of_Bootle's Baby_--Indeed pray never speak of it at all--I never do. 

Yours, OSCAR. 

Please send a _Chronicle_ to my wife. 

 MRS. C. M. HOLLAND, Maison Benguerel, Bevaix, Pres de Neuchatel, just marking it--and if my second letter appears, mark that. 

Also cut out the letter[19] and enclose it in an envelope to:

 MR. ARTHUR CRUTHENDEN, Poste Restante, G. P. O. , Reading, with just these lines:

 Dear friend, The enclosed will interest you. There is also another letter waiting in the post office for you from me with a little money. Ask for it if you have not got it. 

 Yours sincerely, C. 3. 3. 

I have no one but you, dear Robbie, to do anything. Of course the letterto Reading must go at once, as my friends come out on Wednesday morningearly. 

This letter displays almost every quality of Oscar Wilde's genius inperfect efflorescence--his gaiety, joyous merriment and exquisitesensibility. Who can read of the little Chapel to Notre Dame de Liessewithout emotion quickly to be changed to mirth by the sunny humour ofthose delicious specimens of self-advertisement: "Mr. Beerbohm Tree alsowrites: 'Since I have tried it, I am a different actor, my friendshardly recognise me. '"

This letter is the most characteristic thing Oscar Wilde ever wrote, athing produced in perfect health at the topmost height of happy hours, more characteristic even than "The Importance of Being Earnest, " for ithas not only the humour of that delightful farce-comedy, but also morethan a hint of the deeper feeling which was even then forming itselfinto a master-work that will form part of the inheritance of menforever. 

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" belongs to this summer of 1897. A fortunateconjuncture of circumstances--the prison discipline excluding allsense-indulgence, the kindness shown him towards the end of hisimprisonment and of course the delight of freedom--gave him perfectphysical health and hope and joy in work, and so Oscar was enabled for afew brief months to do better than his best. He assured me and I believethat the conception of "The Ballad" came to him in prison and was due tothe alleviation of his punishment and the permission accorded to him towrite and read freely--a divine fruit born directly of his pity forothers and the pity others felt for him. 

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol"[20] was published in January, 1898, overthe signature of C. 3. 3. , Oscar's number in prison. In a few weeks it ranthrough dozens of editions in England and America and translationsappeared in almost every European language, which is proof not so muchof the excellence of the poem as the great place the author held in thecuriosity of men. The enthusiasm with which it was accepted in Englandwas astounding. One reviewer compared it with the best of Sophocles;another said that "nothing like it has appeared in our time. " No word ofcriticism was heard: the most cautious called it a "simple poignantballad, . .. One of the greatest in the English language. " This praise isassuredly not too generous. Yet even this was due to a revulsion offeeling in regard to Oscar himself rather than to any understanding ofthe greatness of his work. The best public felt that he had beendreadfully over-punished, and made a scapegoat for worse offenders andwas glad to have the opportunity of repairing its own fault byover-emphasising Oscar's repentance and over-praising, as it imagined, the first fruits of the converted sinner. 

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is far and away the best poem Oscar Wildeever wrote; we should try to appreciate it as the future will appreciateit. We need not be afraid to trace it to its source and note what isborrowed in it and what is original. After all necessary qualificationsare made, it will stand as a great and splendid achievement. 

Shortly before "The Ballad" was written, a little book of poetry called"A Shropshire Lad" was published by A. E. Housman, now I believeprofessor of Latin at Cambridge. There are only a hundred odd pages inthe booklet; but it is full of high poetry--sincere and passionatefeeling set to varied music. His friend, Reginald Turner, sent Oscar acopy of the book and one poem in particular made a deep impression onhim. It is said that "his actual model for 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'was 'The Dream of Eugene Aram' with 'The Ancient Mariner' thrown in ontechnical grounds"; but I believe that Wilde owed most of hisinspiration to "A Shropshire Lad. "

Here are some verses from Housman's poem and some verses from "TheBallad":

 On moonlit heath and lonesome bank The sheep beside me graze; And yon the gallows used to clank Fast by the four cross ways. 

 A careless shepherd once would keep The flocks by moonlight there, [21] And high amongst the glimmering sheep The dead men stood on air. 

 They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail: The whistles blow forlorn, And trains all night groan on the rail To men that die at morn. 

 There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night, Or wakes, as may betide, A better lad, if things went right, Than most that sleep outside. 

 And naked to the hangman's noose The morning clocks will ring A neck God made for other use Than strangling in a string. 

 And sharp the link of life will snap, And dead on air will stand Heels that held up as straight a chap As treads upon the land. 

 So here I'll watch the night and wait To see the morning shine When he will hear the stroke of eight And not the stroke of nine;

 And wish my friend as sound a sleep As lads I did not know, That shepherded the moonlit sheep A hundred years ago. 

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

 It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes, Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air!

 And as one sees most fearful things In the crystal of a dream, We saw the greasy hempen rope Hooked to the blackened beam And heard the prayer the hangman's snare Strangled into a scream. 

 And all the woe that moved him so That he gave that bitter cry, And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die. 

There are better things in "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" than thoseinspired by Housman. In the last of the three verses I quote there is adistinction of thought which Housman hardly reached. 

 "For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die. "

There are verses, too, wrung from the heart which have a divinerinfluence than any product of the intellect:

 The Chaplain would not kneel to pray By his dishonoured grave: Nor mark it with that blessed Cross That Christ for sinners gave, Because the man was one of those Whom Christ came down to save. 

 * * * * *

 This too I know--and wise were it If each could know the same-- That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim. 

 With bars they blur the gracious moon, And blind the goodly sun: And they do well to hide their Hell, For in it things are done That Son of God nor son of man Ever should look upon!

 The vilest deeds like poison weeds Bloom well in prison-air: It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there: Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, And the Warder is Despair. 

 * * * * *

 And he of the swollen purple throat, And the stark and staring eyes, Waits for the holy hands that took The Thief to Paradise; And a broken and a contrite heart The Lord will not despise. 

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is beyond all comparison the greatestballad in English: one of the noblest poems in the language. This iswhat prison did for Oscar Wilde. 

When speaking to him later about this poem I remember assuming that hisprison experiences must have helped him to realise the suffering of thecondemned soldier and certainly lent passion to his verse. But he wouldnot hear of it. 

"Oh, no, Frank, " he cried, "never; my experiences in prison were toohorrible, too painful to be used. I simply blotted them out altogetherand refused to recall them. "

"What about the verse?" I asked:

 "We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: And in the heart of every man Terror was lying still. "

"Characteristic details, Frank, merely the _décor_ of prison life, notits reality; that no one could paint, not even Dante, who had to turnaway his eyes from lesser suffering. "

It may be worth while to notice here, as an example of the hatred withwhich Oscar Wilde's name and work were regarded, that even after he hadpaid the penalty for his crime the publisher and editor, alike inEngland and America, put anything but a high price on his best work. They would have bought a play readily enough because they would haveknown that it would make them money, but a ballad from his pen nobodyseemed to want. The highest price offered in America for "The Ballad ofReading Gaol" was one hundred dollars. Oscar found difficulty in gettingeven £20 for the English rights from the friend who published it; yet ithas sold since by hundreds of thousands and is certain always to sell. 

I must insert here part of another letter from Oscar Wilde whichappeared in _The Daily Chronicle_, 24th March, 1898, on the cruelties ofthe English prison system; it was headed, "Don't read this if you wantto be happy to-day, " and was signed by "The Author of 'The Ballad ofReading Gaol. '" It was manifestly a direct outcome of his prisonexperiences. The letter was simple and affecting; but it had little orno influence on the English conscience. The Home Secretary was about toreform (!) the prison system by appointing more inspectors. Oscar Wildepointed out that inspectors could do nothing but see that theregulations were carried out. He took up the position that it was theregulations which needed reform. His plea was irrefutable in itsmoderation and simplicity: but it was beyond the comprehension of anEnglish Home Secretary apparently, for all the abuses pointed out byOscar Wilde still flourish. I can't help giving some extracts from thismemorable indictment: memorable for its reserve and sanity and completeabsence of any bitterness:

". .. The prisoner who has been allowed the smallest privilege dreads thearrival of the inspectors. And on the day of any prison inspection theprison officials are more than usually brutal to the prisoners. Theirobject is, of course, to show the splendid discipline they maintain. 

"The necessary reforms are very simple. They concern the needs of thebody and the needs of the mind of each unfortunate prisoner. 

"With regard to the first, there are three permanent punishmentsauthorised by law in English prisons:

"1. Hunger. 

"2. Insomnia. 

"3. Disease. 

"The food supplied to prisoners is entirely inadequate. Most of it isrevolting in character. All of it is insufficient. Every prisonersuffers day and night from hunger. .. . 

"The result of the food--which in most cases consists of weak gruel, badly baked bread, suet and water--is disease in the form of incessantdiarrhoea. This malady, which ultimately with most prisoners becomes apermanent disease, is a recognised institution in every prison. AtWandsworth Prison, for instance--where I was confined for two months, till I had to be carried into hospital, where I remained for anothertwo months--the warders go round twice or three times a day withastringent medicine, which they serve out to the prisoners as a matterof course. After about a week of such treatment it is unnecessary to saythat the medicine produces no effect at all. 

"The wretched prisoner is thus left a prey to the most weakening, depressing and humiliating malady that can be conceived, and if, asoften happens, he fails from physical weakness to complete his requiredevolutions at the crank, or the mill, he is reported for idleness andpunished with the greatest severity and brutality. Nor is this all. 

"Nothing can be worse than the sanitary arrangements of Englishprisons. .. . The foul air of the prison cells, increased by a system ofventilation that is utterly ineffective, is so sickening and unwholesomethat it is not uncommon for warders, when they come into the room out ofthe fresh air, and open and inspect each cell, to be violently sick. .. . 

"With regard to the punishment of insomnia, it only exists in Chineseand English prisons. In China it is inflicted by placing the prisoner ina small bamboo cage; in England by means of the plank bed. The object ofthe plank bed is to produce insomnia. There is no other object in it, and it invariably succeeds. And even when one is subsequently allowed ahard mattress, as happens in the course of imprisonment, one stillsuffers from insomnia. It is a revolting and ignorant punishment. 

"With regard to the needs of the mind, I beg that you will allow me tosay something. 

"The present prison system seems almost to have for its aim the wreckingand the destruction of the mental faculties. The production of insanityis, if not its object, certainly its result. That is a well-ascertainedfact. Its causes are obvious. Deprived of books, of all humanintercourse, isolated from every humane and humanising influence, condemned to eternal silence, robbed of all intercourse with theexternal world, treated like an unintelligent animal, brutalised belowthe level of any of the brute-creation, the wretched man who is confinedin an English prison can hardly escape becoming insane. "

This letter ended by saying that if all the reforms suggested werecarried out much would still remain to be done. It would still beadvisable to "humanise the governors of prisons, to civilise thewarders, and to Christianise the Chaplains. "

This letter was the last effort of the new Oscar, the Oscar who hadmanfully tried to put the prison under his feet and to learn thesignificance of sorrow and the lesson of love which Christ brought intothe world. 

In the beautiful pages about Jesus which form the greater part of _DeProfundis_, also written in those last hopeful months in Reading Gaol, Oscar shows, I think, that he might have done much higher work thanTolstoi or Renan had he set himself resolutely to transmute his newinsight into some form of art. Now and then he divined the very secretof Jesus:

"When he says 'Forgive your enemies' it is not for the sake of theenemy, but for one's own sake that he says so, and because love is morebeautiful than hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell allthat thou hast and give to the poor, ' it is not of the state of the poorthat he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul thatwealth was marring. "

In many of these pages Oscar Wilde really came close to the divineMaster; "the image of the Man of Sorrows, " he says, "has fascinated anddominated art as no Greek god succeeded in doing. ". .. And again:

"Out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth had come a personalityinfinitely greater than any made by myth and legend, and one, strangelyenough, destined to reveal to the world the mystical meaning of wine andthe real beauties of the lilies of the field as none, either onCithæron or Enna, has ever done. The song of Isaiah, 'He is despisedand rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and wehid as it were our faces from him, ' had seemed to him to prefigurehimself, and in him the prophecy was fulfilled. "

In this spirit Oscar made up his mind that he would write about "Christas the precursor of the romantic movement in life" and about "Theartistic life considered in its relation to conduct. "

By bitter suffering he had been brought to see that the moment ofrepentance is the moment of absolution and self-realisation, that tearscan wash out even blood. In "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" he wrote:

 And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal: And the crimson stain that was of Cain Became Christ's snow-white seal. 

This is the highest height Oscar Wilde ever reached, and alas! he onlytrod the summit for a moment. But as he says himself: "One has perhapsto go to prison to understand that. And, if so, it may be worth whilegoing to prison. " He was by nature a pagan who for a few months became aChristian, but to live as a lover of Jesus was impossible to this"Greek born out of due time, " and he never even dreamed of a reconcilingsynthesis. .. . 

The arrest of his development makes him a better representative of histime: he was an artistic expression of the best English mind: a Paganand Epicurean, his rule of conduct was a selfish Individualism:--"Am Imy brother's keeper?" This attitude must entail a dreadful Nemesis, forit condemns one Briton in every four to a pauper's grave. The resultwill convince the most hardened that such selfishness is not a creed bywhich human beings can live in society. 

 * * * * *

This summer of 1897 was the harvest time in Oscar Wilde's Life; and hisgolden Indian summer. We owe it "De Profundis, " the best pages of prosehe ever wrote, and "The Ballad of Reading Gaol, " his only original poem;yet one that will live as long as the language: we owe it also thatsweet and charming letter to Bobbie Ross which shows him in his habit ashe lived. I must still say a word or two about him in this summer inorder to show the ordinary working of his mind. 

On his release, and, indeed, for a year or two later, he called himselfSebastian Melmoth. But one had hardly spoken a half a dozen words tohim, when he used to beg to be called Oscar Wilde. I remember how hepulled up someone who had just been introduced to him, who persisted inaddressing him as Mr. Melmoth. 

"Call me Oscar Wilde, " he pleaded, "Mr. Melmoth is unknown, you see. "

"I thought you preferred it, " said the stranger excusing himself. 

"Oh, dear, no, " interrupted Oscar smiling, "I only use the name Melmothto spare the blushes of the postman, to preserve his modesty, " and helaughed in the old delightful way. 

It was always significant to me the eager delight with which he shuffledoff the new name and took up the old one which he had made famous. 

An anecdote from his life in the Châlet at this time showed that the oldwitty pagan in Oscar was not yet extinct. 

An English lady who had written a great many novels and happened to bestaying in Dieppe heard of him, and out of kindness or curiosity, orperhaps a mixture of both motives, wrote and invited him to luncheon. Heaccepted the invitation. The good lady did not know how to talk to Mr. Sebastian Melmoth, and time went heavily. At length she began toexpatiate on the cheapness of things in France; did Mr. Melmoth know howwonderfully cheap and good the living was?

"Only fancy, " she went on, "you would not believe what that claret youare drinking costs. "

"Really?" questioned Oscar, with a polite smile. 

"Of course I get it wholesale, " she explained, "but it only costs mesixpence a quart. "

"Oh, my dear lady, I'm afraid you have been cheated, " he exclaimed, "ladies should never buy wine. I'm afraid you have been sadlyovercharged. "

The humour may excuse the discourtesy, but Oscar was so uniformly politeto everyone that the incident simply shows how ineffably he had beenbored. 

This summer of 1897 was the decisive period and final turning-point inOscar Wilde's career. So long as the sunny weather lasted and friendscame to visit him from time to time Oscar was content to live in theChâlet Bourgeat; but when the days began to draw in and the weatherbecame unsettled, the dreariness of a life passed in solitude, indoors, and without a library became insupportable. He was being drawn in twoopposite directions. I did not know it at the time; indeed he only toldme about it months later when the matter had been decided irrevocably;but this was the moment when his soul was at stake between good andevil. The question was whether his wife would come to him again orwhether he would yield to the solicitations of Lord Alfred Douglas andgo to live with him. 

Mr. Sherard has told in his book how he brought about the firstreconciliation between Oscar and his wife; and how immediatelyafterwards he received a letter from Lord Alfred Douglas threatening toshoot him like a dog, if, by any words of his, Wilde's friendship waslost to him, Douglas. 

Unluckily Mrs. Wilde's family were against her going back to herhusband; they begged her not to go; talked to her of her duty to herchildren and herself, and the poor woman hesitated. Finally her advisersdecided for her, and Mrs. Wilde wrote this decision to Oscar'ssolicitors shortly before his release: Oscar's probation was to last atleast a year. I do not know enough about Mrs. Wilde and her relationswith her family and with her husband even to discuss her inaction: Idare not criticise her: but she did not go to her husband when if shehad gone boldly she might have saved him. She knew Lord Alfred Douglas'influence over him; knew that it had already brought him to grief. Gidesays, and Oscar himself told me afterwards, that he had come out ofprison determined not to go back to Alfred Douglas and the old life. Itseems a pity that his wife did not act promptly; she allowed herself tobelieve that a time of probation was necessary. The delay woundedOscar, and all the while, as he told me a little later, he was resistingan influence which had dominated his life in the past. 

"I got a letter almost every day, Frank, begging me to come toPosilippo, to the villa which Lord Alfred Douglas had rented. Every dayI heard his voice calling, 'Come, come, to sunshine and to me. Come toNaples with its wonderful museum of bronzes and Pompeii and Pæstum, thecity of Poseidon: I am waiting to welcome you. Come. '

"Who could resist it, Frank? love calling, calling with outstretchedarms; who could stay in bleak Berneval and watch the sheets of rainfalling, falling--and the grey mist shrouding the grey sea, and think ofNaples and love and sunshine; who could resist it all? I could not, Frank, I was so lonely and I hated solitude. I resisted as long as Icould, but when chill October came and Bosie came to Rouen for me, Igave up the struggle and yielded. "

Could Oscar Wilde have won and made for himself a new and greater life?The majority of men are content to think that such a victory wasimpossible to him. Everyone knows that he lost; but I at least believethat he might have won. His wife was on the point of yielding, I havesince been told; on the point of complete reconciliation when she heardthat he had gone to Naples and returned to his old habit of living; afew days made all the difference. 

It was at the instigation of Lord Alfred Douglas that Oscar began theinsane action against Lord Queensberry, in which he put to hazard hissuccess, his position, his good name and liberty, and lost them all. Twoyears later at the same tempting, he committed soul-suicide. 

He was not only better in health than he had ever been; but he wastalking and writing better than ever before and full of literaryprojects which would certainly have given him money and position and ameasure of happiness besides increasing his reputation. From the momenthe went to Naples he was lost, and he knew it himself; he neverafterwards wrote anything: as he used to say, he could never afterwardsface his own soul. 

He could never have won up again, the world says, and shrugs carelessshoulders. It is a cheap, unworthy conclusion. Some of us still persistin believing that Oscar Wilde might easily have won and never again beencaught in that dreadful wind which whips the victims of sensual desireabout unceasingly, driving them hither and thither without rest in thatawful place where: "Nulla speranza gli conforta mai. " (No hope evercomforts!)

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Reproduced in the Appendix. 

[8] Fac-simile copies of some of the notes Oscar wrote to Warder Martinabout these children are reproduced in the Appendix. The notes werewritten on scraps of paper and pushed under his cell-door; they areamong the most convincing evidences of Oscar's essential humanity andkindness of heart. 

[9] The Home Secretary, Sir Matthew White Ridley, when questioned by Mr. Michael Davitt in the House of Commons, May 25, 1897, declared that thisdismissal of a warder for feeding a little hungry child at his ownexpense was "fully justified" and a "proper step. " This same HomeSecretary appointed his utterly incompetent brother to be a judge of theHigh Court. 

[10] The correspondent to whom Wilde writes and the other friendreferred to are Roman Catholics. 

[11] This refers to a story which Wilde was much interested in at thetime. 

[12] The proprietor of the hotel. 

[13] The Sphinx is a nickname for Mrs. Leverson, author of "The EleventhHour, " and other witty novels. 

[14] Ernest was her husband. 

[15] The silver spoon is a proposed line for a play given by Ross toTurner (Reggie). 

[16] Wilde's solicitor in Regina v. Wilde. 

[17] A reference to the "Vailima Letters" of Stevenson which Wilde readwhen he was in prison. 

[18] An architect who sent Wilde books on his release from prison. 

[19] His letter to _The Daily Chronicle_ about Warder Martin and thelittle children. 

[20] The Ballad was finished in Naples and Alfred Douglas has sincedeclared that he helped Oscar Wilde to write it. I have no wish todispute this: Alfred Douglas' poetic gift was extraordinary, far greaterthan Oscar Wilde's. The poem was conceived in prison and a good deal ofit was printed before Oscar went near Alfred Douglas and some of thebest stanzas in it are to be found in this earlier portion: no part ofthe credit of it, in my opinion, belongs to Alfred Douglas. See Appendixfor Ross's opinion. 

[21] Hanging in chains was called keeping sheep by moonlight. 

CHAPTER XX

 "Non dispetto, ma doglia. "--_Dante. _

Oscar Wilde did not stay long in Naples, a few brief months; theforbidden fruit quickly turned to ashes in his mouth. 

I give the following extracts from a letter he wrote to Robert Ross inDecember, 1897, shortly after leaving Naples, because it describes thesecond great crisis in his life and is besides the bitterest thing heever wrote and therefore of peculiar value:

 "The facts of Naples are very bald. Bosie for four months, by endless lies, offered me a home. He offered me love, affection, and care, and promised that I should never want for anything. After four months I accepted his offer, but when we met on our way to Naples, I found he had no money, no plans, and had forgotten all his promises. His one idea was that I should raise the money for us both; I did so to the extent of £120. On this Bosie lived quite happy. When it came to his having to pay his own share he became terribly unkind and penurious, except where his own pleasures were concerned, and when my allowance ceased, he left. 

 "With regard to the £500[22] which he said was a debt of honour, he has written to me to say that he admits the debt of honour, but as lots of gentlemen don't pay their debts of honour, it is quite a common thing and no one thinks any the worse of them. 

 "I don't know what you said to Constance, but the bald fact is that I accepted the offer of the home, and found that I was expected to provide the money, and when I could no longer do so I was left to my own devices. It is the most bitter experience of a bitter life. It is a blow quite awful. It had to come, but I know it is better I should never see him again, I don't want to, it fills me with horror. "

A word of explanation will explain his reference to his wife, Constance, in this letter: by a deed of separation made at the end of hisimprisonment, Mrs. Wilde undertook to allow Oscar £150 a year for life, under the condition that the allowance was to be forfeited if Oscar everlived under the same roof with Lord Alfred Douglas. Having forfeited theallowance Oscar got Robert Ross to ask his wife to continue it and inspite of the forfeiture Mrs. Wilde continually sent Oscar money throughRobert Ross, merely stipulating that her husband should not be toldwhence the money came. Ross, too, who had also sent him £150 a year, resumed his monthly payments as soon as he left Douglas. 

My friendship with Oscar Wilde, which had been interrupted after he leftprison by a silly gibe directed rather against the go-between he hadsent to me than against him, was renewed in Paris early in 1898. I haverelated the little misunderstanding in the Appendix. I had never feltanything but the most cordial affection for Oscar and as soon as I wentto Paris and met him I explained what had seemed to him unkind. When Iasked him about his life since his release he told me simply that he hadquarrelled with Bosie Douglas. 

I did not attribute much importance to this; but I could not helpnoticing the extraordinary change that had taken place in him since hehad been in Naples. His health was almost as good as ever; in fact, theprison discipline with its two years of hard living had done him somuch good that his health continued excellent almost to the end. 

But his whole manner and attitude to life had again changed: he nowresembled the successful Oscar of the early nineties: I caught echoes, too, in his speech of a harder, smaller nature; "that talk aboutreformation, Frank, is all nonsense; no one ever really reforms orchanges. I am what I always was. "

He was mistaken: he took up again the old pagan standpoint; but he wasnot the same; he was reckless now, not thoughtless, and, as soon as oneprobed a little beneath the surface, depressed almost to despairing. Hehad learnt the meaning of suffering and pity, had sensed their value; hehad turned his back upon them all, it is true, but he could not returnto pagan carelessness, and the light-hearted enjoyment of pleasure. Hedid his best and almost succeeded; but the effort was there. His creednow was what it used to be about 1892: "Let us get what pleasure we mayin the fleeting days; for the night cometh, and the silence that cannever be broken. "

The old doctrine of original sin, we now call reversion to type; themost lovely garden rose, if allowed to go without discipline andtendance, will in a few generations become again the common scentlessdog-rose of our hedges. Such a reversion to type had taken place inOscar Wilde. It must be inferred perhaps that the old pagan Greek in himwas stronger than the Christian virtues which had been called into beingby the discipline and suffering of prison. Little by little, as he beganto live his old life again, the lessons learned in prison seemed to dropfrom him and be forgotten. But in reality the high thoughts he had livedwith, were not lost; his lips had been touched by the divine fire; hiseyes had seen the world-wonder of sympathy, pity and love and, strangelyenough, this higher vision helped, as we shall soon see, to shake hisindividuality from its centre, and thus destroyed his power of work andcompleted his soul-ruin. Oscar's second fall--this time from aheight--was fatal and made writing impossible to him. It is all clearenough now in retrospect though I did not understand it at the time. When he went to live with Bosie Douglas he threw off the Christianattitude, but afterwards had to recognise that "De Profundis" and "TheBallad of Reading Gaol" were deeper and better work than any of hisearlier writings. He resumed the pagan position; outwardly and for thetime being he was the old Oscar again, with his Greek love of beauty andhatred of disease, deformity and ugliness, and whenever he met akindred spirit, he absolutely revelled in gay paradoxes and brilliantflashes of humour. But he was at war with himself, like Milton's Satanalways conscious of his fall, always regretful of his lost estate and byreason of this division of spirit unable to write. Perhaps because ofthis he threw himself more than ever into talk. 

He was beyond all comparison the most interesting companion I have everknown: the most brilliant talker, I cannot but think, that ever lived. No one surely ever gave himself more entirely in speech. Again and againhe declared that he had only put his talent into his books and plays, but his genius into his life. If he had said into his talk, it wouldhave been the exact truth. 

People have differed a great deal about his mental and physicalcondition after he came out of prison. All who knew him really, Ross, Turner, More Adey, Lord Alfred Douglas and myself, are agreed that inspite of a slight deafness he was never better in health, never indeedso well. But some French friends were determined to make him out amartyr. 

In his picture of Wilde's last years, Gide tells us that "he hadsuffered too grievously from his imprisonment. .. . His will had beenbroken . .. Nothing remained in his shattered life but a mouldyruin, [23] painful to contemplate, of his former self. At times he seemedto wish to show that his brain was still active. Humour there was; butit was far-fetched, forced and threadbare. "

These touches may be necessary in order to complete a French picture ofthe social outcast. They are not only untrue when applied to OscarWilde, but the reverse of the truth; he never talked so well, was neverso charming a companion as in the last years of his life. 

In the very last year his talk was more genial, more humorous, morevivid than ever, with a wider range of thought and intenser stimulusthan before. He was a born _improvisatore_. At the moment he alwaysdazzled one out of judgment. A phonograph would have discovered thetruth; a great part of his charm was physical; much of his talk meretopsy-turvy paradox, the very froth of thought carried off by gleaming, dancing eyes, smiling, happy lips, and a melodious voice. 

The entertainment usually started with some humorous play on words. Oneof the company would say something obvious or trivial, repeat a proverbor commonplace tag such as, "Genius is born, not made, " and Oscar wouldflash in smiling, "not 'paid, ' my dear fellow, not 'paid. '"

An interesting comment would follow on some doing of the day, a skit onsome accepted belief or a parody of some pretentious solemnity, a wingedword on a new book or a new author, and when everyone was smiling withamused enjoyment, the fine eyes would become introspective, thebeautiful voice would take on a grave music and Oscar would begin astory, a story with symbolic second meaning or a glimpse of new thought, and when all were listening enthralled, of a sudden the eyes woulddance, the smile break forth again like sunshine and some sparklingwitticism would set everyone laughing. 

The spell was broken, but only for a moment. A new clue would soon begiven and at once Oscar was off again with renewed brio to finereffects. 

The talking itself warmed and quickened him extraordinarily: he loved toshow off and astonish his audience, and usually talked better after anhour or two than at the beginning. His verve was inexhaustible. Butalways a great part of the fascination lay in the quick changes fromgrave to gay, from pathos to mockery, from philosophy to fun. 

There was but little of the actor in him. When telling a story he nevermimicked his personages; his drama seldom lay in clash of character, butin thought; it was the sheer beauty of the words, the melody of thecadenced voice, the glowing eyes which fascinated you and always andabove all the scintillating, coruscating humour that lifted hismonologues into works of art. 

Curiously enough he seldom talked of himself or of the incidents of hispast life. After the prison he always regarded himself as a sort ofPrometheus and his life as symbolic; but his earlier experiences neversuggested themselves to him as specially significant; the happenings ofhis life after his fall seemed predestined and fateful to him; yet ofthose he spoke but seldom. Even when carried away by his own eloquence, he kept the tone of good society. 

When you came afterwards to think over one of those wonderful eveningswhen he had talked for hours, almost without interruption, you hardlyfound more than an epigram, a fugitive flash of critical insight, anapologue or pretty story charmingly told. Over all this he had cast theglittering, sparkling robe of his Celtic gaiety, verbal humour, andsensual enjoyment of living. It was all like champagne; meant to bedrunk quickly; if you let it stand, you soon realised that some stillwines had rarer virtues. But there was always about him the magic of arich and _puissant_ personality; like some great actor he could take apoor part and fill it with the passion and vivacity of his own nature, till it became a living and memorable creation. 

He gave the impression of wide intellectual range, yet in reality he wasnot broad; life was not his study nor the world-drama his field. Histalk was all of literature and art and the vanities; the lightdrawing-room comedy on the edge of farce was his kingdom; there he ruledas a sovereign. 

Anyone who has read Oscar Wilde's plays at all carefully, especially"The Importance of Being Earnest, " must, I think, see that in kindly, happy humour he is without a peer in literature. Who can ever forget thescene between the town and country girl in that delightful farce-comedy. As soon as the London girl realises that the country girl has hardly anyopportunity of making new friends or meeting new men, she exclaims:

"Ah! now I know what they mean when they talk of agriculturaldepression. "

This sunny humour is Wilde's especial contribution to literature: hecalls forth a smile whereas others try to provoke laughter. Yet he wasas witty as anyone of whom we have record, and some of the best epigramsin English are his. "The cynic knows the price of everything and thevalue of nothing" is better than the best of La Rochefoucauld, as goodas the best of Vauvenargues or Joubert. He was as wittily urbane asCongreve. But all the witty things that one man can say may be numberedon one's fingers. It was through his humour that Wilde reigned supreme. It was his humour that lent his talk its singular attraction. He was theonly man I have ever met or heard of who could keep one smiling withamusement hour after hour. True, much of the humour was merely verbal, but it was always gay and genial: summer-lightning humour, I used tocall it, unexpected, dazzling, full of colour yet harmless. 

Let me try and catch here some of the fleeting iridescence of thatradiant spirit. Some years before I had been introduced to Mdlle. MarieAnne de Bovet by Sir Charles Dilke. Mdlle. De Bovet was a writer oftalent and knew English uncommonly well; but in spite of masses of fairhair and vivacious eyes she was certainly very plain. As soon as sheheard I was in Paris, she asked me to present Oscar Wilde to her. He hadno objection, and so I made a meeting between them. When he caught sightof her, he stopped short: seeing his astonishment, she cried to him inher quick, abrupt way:

"N'est-ce pas, M. Wilde, que je suis la femme la plus laide de France?"(Come, confess, Mr. Wilde, that I am the ugliest woman in France. )

Bowing low, Oscar replied with smiling courtesy:

"Du monde, Madame, du monde. " (In the world, madame, in the world. )

No one could help laughing; the retort was irresistible. He should havesaid: "Au monde, madame, au monde, " but the meaning was clear. 

Sometimes this thought-quickness and happy dexterity had to be used inself-defence. Jean Lorrain was the wittiest talker I have ever heard inFrance, and a most brilliant journalist. His life was as abandoned as itcould well be; in fact, he made a parade of strange vices. In the daysof Oscar's supremacy he always pretended to be a friend and admirer. About this time Oscar wanted me to know Stephane Mallarmé. He took me tohis rooms one afternoon when there was a reception. There were a greatmany people present. Mallarmé was standing at the other end of the roomleaning against the chimney piece. Near the door was Lorrain, and weboth went towards him, Oscar with outstretched hands:

"Delighted to see you, Jean. "

For some reason or other, most probably out of tawdry vanity, Lorrainfolded his arms theatrically and replied:

"I regret I cannot say as much: I can no longer be one of your friends, M. Wilde. "

The insult was stupid, brutal; yet everyone was on tiptoe to see howOscar would answer it. 

"How true that is, " he said quietly, as quickly as if he had expectedthe traitor-thrust, "how true and how sad! At a certain time in life allof us who have done anything like you and me, Lorrain, must realise thatwe no longer have any friends in this world; but only lovers. " (Plusd'amis, seulement des amants. )

A smile of approval lighted up every face. 

"Well said, well said, " was the general exclamation. His humour wasalmost invariably generous, kind. 

One day in a Paris studio the conversation turned on the character ofMarat: one Frenchman would have it that he was a fiend, another saw inhim the incarnation of the revolution, a third insisted that he wasmerely the gamin of the Paris streets grown up. Suddenly one turned toOscar, who was sitting silent, and asked his opinion: he took the ballat once, gravely. 

"_Ce malheureux! Il n'avait pas de veine--pour une fois qu'il a pris unbain_. .. . " (Poor devil, he was unlucky! To come to such grief for oncetaking a bath. )

For a little while Oscar was interested in the Dreyfus case, andespecially in the Commandant Esterhazy, who played such a prominentpart in it with the infamous _bordereau_ which brought about theconviction of Dreyfus. Most Frenchmen now know that the _bordereau_ wasa forgery and without any real value. 

I was curious to see Esterhazy, and Oscar brought him to lunch one dayat Durand's. He was a little below middle height, extremely thin and asdark as any Italian, with an enormous hook nose and heavy jaw. He lookedto me like some foul bird of prey: greed and cunning in the restlessbrown eyes set close together, quick resolution in the out-thrust, bonyjaws and hard chin; but manifestly he had no capacity, no mind: he wasmeagre in all ways. For a long time he bored us by insisting thatDreyfus was a traitor, a Jew, and a German; to him a trinity of faults, whereas he, Esterhazy, was perfectly innocent and had been very badlytreated. At length Oscar leant across the table and said to him inFrench with, strange to say, a slight Irish accent, not noticeable whenhe spoke English:

"The innocent, " he said, "always suffer, M. Le Commandant; it is their_métier_. Besides, we are all innocent till we are found out; it is apoor, common part to play and within the compass of the meanest. Theinteresting thing surely is to be guilty and so wear as a halo theseduction of sin. "

Esterhazy appeared put out for a moment, and then he caught the genialgaiety of the reproof and the hint contained in it. His vanity would notallow him to remain long in a secondary _rôle_, and so, to ouramazement, he suddenly broke out:

"Why should I not make my confession to you? I will. It is I, Esterhazy, who alone am guilty. I wrote the _bordereau_. I put Dreyfus in prison, and all France can not liberate him. I am the maker of the plot, and thechief part in it is mine. "

To his surprise we both roared with laughter. The influence of thelarger nature on the smaller to such an extraordinary issue wasirresistibly comic. At the time no one even suspected Esterhazy inconnection with the _bordereau_. 

Another example, this time of Oscar's wit, may find a place here. SirLewis Morris was a voluminous poetaster with a common mind. He oncebored Oscar by complaining that his books were boycotted by the press;after giving several instances of unfair treatment he burst out:"There's a conspiracy against me, a conspiracy of silence; but what canone do? What should I do?"

"Join it, " replied Oscar smiling. 

Oscar's humour was for the most part intellectual, and something likeit can be found in others, though the happy fecundity and lightsomegaiety of it belonged to the individual temperament and perished withhim. I remember once trying to give an idea of the different sides ofhis humour, just to see how far it could be imitated. 

I made believe to have met him at Paddington, after his release fromReading, though he was brought to Pentonville in private clothes by awarder on May 18th, and was released early the next morning, two yearsto the hour from the commencement of the Sessions at which he wasconvicted on May 25th. The Act says that you must be released from theprison in which you are first confined. I pretended, however, that I hadmet him. The train, I said, ran into Paddington Station early in themorning. I went across to him as he got out of the carriage: grey dawnfilled the vast echoing space; a few porters could be seen scatteredabout; it was all chill and depressing. 

"Welcome, welcome, Oscar!" I cried holding out my hands. "I am sorry I'malone. You ought to have been met by troops of boys and girlsflower-crowned, but alas! you will have to content yourself with onemiddle-aged admirer. "

"Yes, it's really terrible, Frank, " he replied gravely. "If Englandpersists in treating her criminals like this, she does not deserve tohave any. .. . "

"Ah, " said an old lady to him one day at lunch, "I know you people whopretend to be a great deal worse than you are, I know you. I shouldn'tbe afraid of you. "

"Naturally we pretend to be bad, dear lady, " he replied; "it is the onlyway to make ourselves interesting to you. Everyone believes a man whopretends to be good, he is such a bore; but no one believes a man whosays he is evil. That makes him interesting. "

"Oh, you are too clever for me, " replied the old lady nodding her head. "You see in my day none of us went to Girton and Newnham. There were noschools then for the higher education of women. "

"How absurd such schools are, are they not?" cried Oscar. "Were I adespot, I should immediately establish schools for the lower educationof women. That's what they need. It usually takes ten years living witha man to complete a woman's education. "

"Then what would you do, " asked someone, "about the lower education ofman?"

"That's already provided for, my dear fellow, amply provided for; wehave our public schools and universities to see to that. What we wantare schools for the higher education of men, and schools for the lowereducation of women. "

Genial persiflage of this sort was his particular _forte_ whether myimitation of it is good or bad. 

His kindliness was ingrained. I never heard him say a gross or even avulgar word, hardly even a sharp or unkind thing. Whether in company orwith one person, his mind was all dedicated to genial, kindly, flattering thoughts. He hated rudeness or discussion or insistence as hehated ugliness or deformity. 

One evening of this summer a trivial incident showed me that he wassinking deeper in the mud-honey of life. 

A new play was about to be given at the Français and because heexpressed a wish to see it I bought a couple of tickets. We went in andhe made me change places with him in order to be able to talk to me; hewas growing nearly deaf in the bad ear. After the first act we wentoutside to smoke a cigarette. 

"It's stupid, " Oscar began, "fancy us two going in there to listen towhat that foolish Frenchman says about love; he knows nothing about it;either of us could write much better on the theme. Let's walk up anddown here under the columns and talk. "

The people began to go into the theatre again and, as they weredisappearing, I said:

"It seems rather a pity to waste our tickets; so many wish to see theplay. "

"We shall find someone to give them to, " he said indifferently, stoppingby one of the pillars. 

At that very moment as if under his hand appeared a boy of about fifteenor sixteen, one of the gutter-snipe of Paris. To my amazement, he said:

"Bon soir, Monsieur Wilde. "

Oscar turned to him smiling. 

"Vous êtes Jules, n'est-ce pas?" (you are Jules, aren't you?) hequestioned. 

"Oui, M. Wilde. "

"Here is the very boy you want, " Oscar cried; "let's give him thetickets, and he'll sell them, and make something out of them, " and Oscarturned and began to explain to the boy how I had given two hundredfrancs for the tickets, and how, even now, they should be worth a louisor two. 

"Des jaunets" (yellow boys), cried the youth, his sharp face lightingup, and in a flash he had vanished with the tickets. 

"You see he knows me, Frank, " said Oscar, with the childish pleasure ofgratified vanity. 

"Yes, " I replied drily, "not an acquaintance to be proud of, I shouldthink. "

"I don't agree with you, Frank, " he said, resenting my tone, "did younotice his eyes? He is one of the most beautiful boys I have ever seen;an exact replica of Emilienne D'Alençon, [24] I call him Jules D'Alençon, and I tell her he must be her brother. I had them both dining with meonce and the boy is finer than the girl, his skin far more beautiful. 

"By the way, " he went on, as we were walking up the Avenue de l'Opera, "why should we not see Emilienne; why should she not sup with us, andyou could compare them? She is playing at Olympia, near the Grand Hotel. Let's go and compare Aspasia and Agathon, and for once I shall beAlcibiades, and you the moralist, Socrates. "

"I would rather talk to you, " I replied. 

"We can talk afterwards, Frank, when all the stars come out to listen;now is the time to live and enjoy. "

"As you will, " I said, and we went to the Music Hall and got a box, andhe wrote a little note to Emilienne D'Alençon, and she came afterwardsto supper with us. Though her face was pretty she was pre-eminently dulland uninteresting without two ideas in her bird's head. She was allgreed and vanity, and could talk of nothing but the hope of getting anengagement in London: could he help her, or would Monsieur, referring tome, as a journalist get her some good puffs in advance? Oscar promisedeverything gravely. 

While we were supping inside, Oscar caught sight of the boy passingalong the Boulevard. At once he tapped on the window, loud enough toattract his attention. Nothing loth, the boy came in, and the four of ushad supper together--a strange quartette. 

"Now, Frank, " said Oscar, "compare the two faces and you will see thelikeness, " and indeed there was in both the same Greek beauty--the sameregularity of feature, the same low brow and large eyes, the sameperfect oval. 

"I am telling my friend, " said Oscar to Emilienne in French, "how alikeyou two are, true brother and sister in beauty and in the finest ofarts, the art of living, " and they both laughed. 

"The boy is better looking, " he went on to me in English. "Her mouth iscoarse and hard; her hands common, while the boy is quite perfect. "

"Rather dirty, don't you think?" I could not help remarking. 

"Dirty, of course, but that's nothing; nothing is so immaterial ascolouring; form is everything, and his form is perfect, as exquisite asthe David of Donatello. That's what he's like, Frank, the David ofDonatello, " and he pulled his jowl, delighted to have found the paintingword. 

As soon as Emilienne saw that we were talking of the boy, her interestin the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. Shehad to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontentedcuriosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of affectedpoliteness. 

"_Au revoir, n'est-ce pas? à Charing Cross, n'est-ce-pas, Monsieur? Vousne m'oublierez pas?. .. _"

As we turned to walk along the boulevard I noticed that the boy, too, had disappeared. The moonlight was playing with the leaves and boughs ofthe plane trees and throwing them in Japanese shadow-pictures on thepavement: I was given over to thought; evidently Oscar imagined I wasoffended, for he launched out into a panegyric on Paris. 

"The most wonderful city in the world, the only civilised capital; theonly place on earth where you find absolute toleration for all humanfrailties, with passionate admiration for all human virtues andcapacities. 

"Do you remember Verlaine, Frank? His life was nameless and terrible, hedid everything to excess, was drunken, dirty and debauched, and yetthere he would sit in a café on the Boul' Mich', and everybody who camein would bow to him, and call him _maître_ and be proud of any sign ofrecognition from him because he was a great poet. 

"In England they would have murdered Verlaine, and men who callthemselves gentlemen would have gone out of their way to insult him inpublic. England is still only half-civilised; Englishmen touch life atone or two points without suspecting its complexity. They are rude andharsh. "

All the while I could not help thinking of Dante and his condemnation ofFlorence, and its "hard, malignant people, " the people who still hadsomething in them of "the mountain and rock" of their birthplace:--"_Etiene ancor del monte e del macigno. _"

"You are not offended, Frank, are you, with me, for making you meet twocaryatides of the Parisian temple of pleasure?"

"No, no, " I cried, "I was thinking how Dante condemned Florence and itspeople, its ungrateful malignant people, and how when his teacher, Brunetto Latini, and his companions came to him in the underworld, hefelt as if he, too, must throw himself into the pit with them. Nothingprevented him from carrying out his good intention (_buona voglia_)except the fear of being himself burned and baked as they were. I wasjust thinking that it was his great love for Latini which gave him thedeathless words:

 . .. "Non dispetto, ma doglia La vostra condizion dentro mi fisse. 

"Not contempt but sorrow. .. . "

"Oh, Frank, " cried Oscar, "what a beautiful incident! I remember it all. I read it this last winter in Naples. .. . Of course Dante was full ofpity as are all great poets, for they know the weakness of humannature. "

But even "the sorrow" of which Dante spoke seemed to carry with it somehint of condemnation; for after a pause he went on:

"You must not judge me, Frank: you don't know what I have suffered. Nowonder I snatch now at enjoyment with both hands. They did terriblethings to me. Did you know that when I was arrested the police let thereporters come to the cell and stare at me. Think of it--the degradationand the shame--as if I had been a monster on show. Oh! you knew! Thenyou know, too, how I was really condemned before I was tried; and what afarce my trial was. That terrible judge with his insults to those he wassorry he could not send to the scaffold. 

"I never told you the worst thing that befell me. When they took me fromWandsworth to Reading, we had to stop at Clapham Junction. We werenearly an hour waiting for the train. There we sat on the platform. Iwas in the hideous prison clothes, handcuffed between two warders. Youknow how the trains come in every minute. Almost at once I wasrecognised, and there passed before me a continual stream of men andboys, and one after the other offered some foul sneer or gibe or scoff. They stood before me, Frank, calling me names and spitting on theground--an eternity of torture. "

My heart bled for him. 

"I wonder if any punishment will teach humanity to such people, orunderstanding of their own baseness?"

After walking a few paces he turned to me:

"Don't reproach me, Frank, even in thought. You have no right to. Youdon't know me yet. Some day you will know more and then you will besorry, so sorry that there will be no room for any reproach of me. If Icould tell you what I suffered this winter!"

"This winter!" I cried. "In Naples?"

"Yes, in gay, happy Naples. It was last autumn that I really fell toruin. I had come out of prison filled with good intentions, with allgood resolutions. My wife had promised to come back to me. I hoped shewould come very soon. If she had come at once, if she only had, it mightall have been different. But she did not come. I have no doubt she wasright from her point of view. She has always been right. 

"But I was alone there in Berneval, and Bosie kept on calling me, calling, and as you know I went to him. At first it was all wonderful. The bruised leaves began to unfold in the light and warmth ofaffection; the sore feeling began to die out of me. 

"But at once my allowance from my wife was stopped. Yes, Frank, " hesaid, with a touch of the old humour, "they took it away when theyshould have doubled it. I did not care. When I had money I gave it tohim without counting, so when I could not pay I thought Bosie would pay, and I was content. But at once I discovered that he expected me to findthe money. I did what I could; but when my means were exhausted, theevil days began. He expected me to write plays and get money for us bothas in the past; but I couldn't; I simply could not. When we were dunnedhis temper went to pieces. He has never known what it is to want really. You have no conception of the wretchedness of it all. He has a terrible, imperious, irritable temper. "

"He's the son of his father, " I interjected. 

"Yes, " said Oscar, "I am afraid that's the truth, Frank; he is the sonof his father; violent, and irritable, with a tongue like a lash. Assoon as the means of life were straitened, he became sullen and beganreproaching me; why didn't I write? Why didn't I earn money? What wasthe good of me? As if I could write under such conditions. No man, Frank, has ever suffered worse shame and humiliation. 

"At last there was a washing bill to be paid; Bosie was dunned for it, and when I came in, he raged and whipped me with his tongue. It wasappalling; I had done everything for him, given him everything, losteverything, and now I could only stand and see love turned to hate: thestrength of love's wine making the bitter more venomous. Then he leftme, Frank, and now there is no hope for me. I am lost, finished, aderelict floating at the mercy of the stream, without plan orpurpose. .. . And the worst of it is, I know, if men have treated mebadly, I have treated myself worse; it is our sins against ourselves wecan never forgive. .. . Do you wonder that I snatch at any pleasure?"

He turned and looked at me all shaken; I saw the tears pouring down hischeeks. 

"I cannot talk any more, Frank, " he said in a broken voice, "I must go. "

I called a cab. My heart was so heavy within me, so sore, that I saidnothing to stop him. He lifted his hand to me in sign of farewell, and Iturned again to walk home alone, understanding, for the first time in mylife, the full significance of the marvellous line in which Shakespearesummed up his impeachment of the world and his own justification: theonly justification of any of us mortals:

 "A man more sinn'd against than sinning. "

FOOTNOTES:

[22] This was the sum promised by the whole Queensberry family and byLord Alfred Douglas in particular to Oscar to defray the costs of thatfirst action for libel which they persuaded him to bring against LordQueensberry. Ross has since stated in court that it was never paid. Thehistory of the monies promised and supplied to Oscar at that time is soextraordinary and so characteristic of the age that it might wellfurnish a chapter to itself. Here it is enough just to say that thosewho ought to have supplied him with money evaded the obligation, whileothers upon whom he had no claim, helped him liberally; but even largesums slipped through his careless fingers like water. 

[23] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross. "

[24] One of the prettiest daughters of the game to be found in Paris atthe time. 

CHAPTER XXI

The more I considered the matter, the more clearly I saw, or thought Isaw, that the only chance of salvation for Oscar was to get him to work, to give him some purpose in life, and the reader should remember herethat at this time I had not read "De Profundis" and did not know thatOscar in prison had himself recognised this necessity. After all, I saidto myself, nothing is lost if he will only begin to write. A man shouldbe able to whistle happiness and hope down the wind and take despair tohis bed and heart, and win courage from his harsh companion. Happinessis not essential to the artist: happiness never creates anything butmemories. If Oscar would work and not brood over the past and studyhimself like an Indian Fakir, he might yet come to soul-health andachievement. He could win back everything; his own respect, and therespect of his fellows, if indeed that were worth winning. An artist, Iknew, must have at least the self-abnegation of the hero, and heroicresolution to strive and strive, or he will never bring it far even inhis art. If I could only get Oscar to work, it seemed to me everythingmight yet come right. I spent a week with him, lunching and dining andputting all this before him, in every way. 

I noticed that he enjoyed the good eating and the good drinking asintensely as ever. He was even drinking too much I thought, wasbeginning to get stout and flabby again, but the good living was anecessity to him, and it certainly did not prevent him from talkingcharmingly. But as soon as I pressed him to write he would shake hishead:

"Oh, Frank, I cannot, you know my rooms; how could I write there? Ahorrid bedroom like a closet, and a little sitting room without anyoutlook. Books everywhere; and no place to write; to tell you the truthI cannot even read in it. I can do nothing in such miserable poverty. "

Again and again he came back to this. He harped upon his destitution, sothat I could not but see purpose in it. He was already cunning in theart of getting money without asking for it. My heart ached for him; onegoes down hill with such fatal speed and ease, and the mire at thebottom is so loathsome. I hastened to say:

"I can let you have a little money; but you ought to work, Oscar. Afterall why should anyone help you, if you will not help yourself? If Icannot aid you to save yourself, I am only doing you harm. "

"A base sophism, Frank, mere sophistry, as you know: a good lunch isbetter than a bad one for any living man. "

I smiled, "Don't do yourself injustice: you could easily gain thousandsand live like a prince again. Why not make the effort?"

"If I had pleasant, sunny rooms I'd try. .. . It's harder than you think. "

"Nonsense, it's easy for you. Your punishment has made your name knownin every country in the world. A book of yours would sell like wildfire;a play of yours would draw in any capital. You might live here like aprince. Shakespeare lost love and friendship, hope and health toboot--everything, and yet forced himself to write 'The Tempest. ' Whycan't you?"

"I'll try, Frank, I'll try. "

I may just mention here that any praise of another man, even ofShakespeare, was sure to move Oscar to emulation. He acknowledged nosuperior. In some articles in _The Saturday Review_ I had said that noone had ever given completer record of himself than Shakespeare. "Weknow him better than we know any of our contemporaries, " I went on, "andhe is better worth knowing. " At once Oscar wrote to me objecting to thisphrase. "Surely, Frank, you have forgotten me. Surely, I am betterworth knowing than Shakespeare?"

The question astonished me so that I could not make up my mind at once;but when he pressed me later I had to tell him that Shakespeare hadreached higher heights of thought and feeling than any modern, though Iwas probably wrong in saying that I knew him better than I knew a livingman. 

I had to go back to England and some little time elapsed before I couldreturn to Paris; but I crossed again early in the summer, and found hehad written nothing. 

I often talked with him about it; but now he changed his ground alittle. 

"I can't write, Frank. When I take up my pen all the past comes back: Icannot bear the thoughts . .. Regret and remorse, like twin dogs, wait toseize me at any idle moment. I must go out and watch life, amuse, interest myself, or I should go mad. You don't know how sore it is aboutmy heart, as soon as I am alone. I am face to face with my own soul; theOscar of four years ago, with his beautiful secure life, and hisglorious easy triumphs, comes up before me, and I cannot stand thecontrast. .. . My eyes burn with tears. If you care for me, Frank, youwill not ask me to write. "

"You promised to try, " I said somewhat harshly, "and I want you to try. You haven't suffered more than Dante suffered in exile and poverty; yetyou know if he had suffered ten times as much, he would have written itall down. Tears, indeed! the fire in his eyes would have dried thetears. "

"True enough, Frank, but Dante was all of one piece whereas I am drawnin two different directions. I was born to sing the joy and pride oflife, the pleasure of living, the delight in everything beautiful inthis most beautiful world, and they took me and tortured me till Ilearned pity and sorrow. Now I cannot sing the joy, heartily, because Iknow the suffering, and I was never made to sing of suffering. I hateit, and I want to sing the love songs of joy and pleasure. It is joyalone which appeals to my soul; the joy of life and beauty and love--Icould sing the song of Apollo the Sun-God, and they try to force me tosing the song of the tortured Marsyas. "

This to me was his true and final confession. His second fall afterleaving prison had put him "at war with himself. " This is, I think, thevery heart of truth about his soul; the song of sorrow, of pity andrenunciation was not his song, and the experience of suffering preventedhim from singing the delight of life and the joy he took in beauty. Itnever seemed to occur to him that he could reach a faith which shouldinclude both self-indulgence and renunciation in a larger acceptance oflife. 

In spite of his sunny nature he had a certain amount of jealousy andenvy in him which was always brought to light by the popular success ofthose whom he had known and measured. I remember his telling me oncethat he wrote his first play because he was annoyed at the way Pinerowas being praised--"Pinero, who can't write at all: he is astage-carpenter and nothing else. His characters are made of dough; andnever was there such a worthless style, or rather such a completeabsence of style: he writes like a grocer's assistant. "

I noticed now that this trait of jealousy was stronger in him than ever. One day I showed him an English illustrated paper which I had bought onmy way to lunch. It contained a picture of George Curzon (I beg hispardon, Lord Curzon) as Viceroy of India. He was photographed in acarriage with his wife by his side: the gorgeous state carriage drawn byfour horses, with outriders, and escorted by cavalry and cheeringcrowds--all the paraphernalia and pomp of imperial power. 

"Do you see that?" cried Oscar angrily; "fancy George Curzon beingtreated like that. I know him well; a more perfect example of ploddingmediocrity was never seen in the world. He had never a thought or phraseabove the common. "

"I know him pretty well, too, " I replied. "His incurable commonness isthe secret of his success. He 'voices, ' as he would say himself, theopinion of the average man on every subject. He might be a leader-writeron the _Mail_ or _Times_. What do you know of the average man or of hisopinions? But the man in the street, as he is called to-day, can onlylearn from the man who is just one step above himself, and so the GeorgeCurzons come to success in life. That, too, is the secret of thepopularity of this or that writer. Hall Caine is an even larger GeorgeCurzon, a better endowed mediocrity. "

"But why should he have fame and state and power?" Oscar criedindignantly. 

"State and power, because he is George Curzon, but fame he never willhave, and I suspect if the truth were known, in the moments when he toocomes face to face with his own soul, as you say, he would give a gooddeal of his state and power for a very little of your fame. "

"That is probably true, Frank, " cried Oscar, "that is almost certainlythe crumpled rose-leaf of his couch, but how grossly he isover-estimated and over-rewarded. .. . Do you know Wilfred Blunt?"

"I have met him, " I replied, "but don't know him. We met once and hebragged preposterously about his Arab ponies. I was at that time editorof _The Evening News_: and Mr. Blunt tried hard to talk down to mylevel. "

"He is by way of being a poet, and he has a very real love ofliterature. "

"I know, " I said; "I really know his work and a good deal about him andhave nothing but praise for the way he championed the Egyptians, and forhis poetry when he has anything to say. "

"Well, Frank, he had a sort of club at Crabbett Park, a club for poets, to which only poets were invited, and he was a most admirable andperfect host. Lady Blunt could never make out what he was up to. He usedto get us all down to Crabbett, and the poet who was received last hadto make a speech about the new poet--a speech in which he was supposedto tell the truth about the new-comer. Blunt took the idea, no doubt, from the custom of the French Academy. Well, he asked me down toCrabbett Park, and George Curzon, if you please, was the poet picked tomake the speech about me. "

"Good God, " I cried, "Curzon a poet. It's like Kitchener being taken fora great captain, or Salisbury for a statesman. "

"He writes verses, Frank, but of course there is not a line of poetry inhim: his verses are good enough though, well-turned, I mean, and sharp, if not witty. Well, Curzon had to make this speech about me afterdinner. We had a delightful dinner, quite perfect, and then Curzon gotup. He had evidently prepared his speech carefully, it was bristlingwith innuendoes; sneering side-hits at strange sins. Everyone looked athis fellow and thought the speech the height of bad taste. 

"Mediocrity always detests ability, and loathes genius; Curzon wanted toprove to himself that at any rate in the moralities he was my superior. 

"When he sat down I had to answer him. That was the programme. Of courseI had not prepared a speech, had not thought about Curzon, or what hemight say, but I got up, Frank, and told the kindliest truth about him, and everyone took it for the bitterest sarcasm, and cheered and cheeredme, though what I said was merely the truth. I told how difficult it wasfor Curzon to work and study at Oxford. Everyone wanted to know himbecause of his position, because he was going into Parliament, andcertain to make a great figure there; and everyone tried to make up tohim, but he knew that he must not yield to such seduction, so he sat inhis room with a wet towel about his head, and worked and worked withoutceasing. 

"In the earlier examinations, which demand only memory, he won firsthonours. But even success could not induce him to relax his efforts; helived laborious days and took every college examination seriously; hemade out dates in red ink, and hung them on his wall, and learnt pagesof uninteresting events and put them in blue ink in his memory, and atlast came out of the 'Final Schools' with second honours. And now, Iconcluded, 'this model youth is going into life, and he is certain totreat it seriously, certain to win at any rate second honours in it, andhave a great and praiseworthy career. '

"Frank, they roared with laughter, and, to do Curzon justice, at the endhe came up to me and apologised, and was charming. Indeed, they all mademuch of me and we had a great night. 

"I remember we talked all the night through, or rather I talked andeveryone else listened, for the great principle of the division oflabour is beginning to be understood in English Society. The host givesexcellent food, excellent wine, excellent cigarettes, andsuper-excellent coffee, that's his part, and all the men listen, that'stheirs: while I talk and the stars twinkle their delight. 

"Wyndham was there, too; you know George Wyndham, with his beautifulface and fine figure: he is infinitely cleverer than Curzon but he hasnot Curzon's push and force, or perhaps, as you say, he is not in suchclose touch with the average man as Curzon; he was charming to me. 

"In the morning we all trooped out to see the dawn, and some of theyoung ones, wild with youth and high spirits, Curzon of course among thenumber, stripped off their clothes and rushed down to the lake and beganswimming and diving about like a lot of schoolboys. There is a greatdeal of the schoolboy in all Englishmen, that is what makes them solovable. When they came out they ran over the grass to dry themselves, and then began playing lawn tennis, just as they were, stark naked, thefuture rulers of England. I shall never forget the scene. Wilfred Blunthad gone up to his wife's apartments and had changed into some fantasticpyjamas; suddenly he opened an upper window and came out and perchedhimself, cross-legged, on the balcony, looking down at the mad game oflawn tennis, for all the world like a sort of pink and green Buddha, while I strolled about with someone, and ordered fresh coffee and talkedtill the dawn came with silent silver feet lighting up the beautifulgreenery of the park. .. . 

"Now George Curzon plays king in India: Wyndham is on the way to power, and I'm hiding in shame and poverty here in Paris, an exile and outcast. Do you wonder that I cannot write, Frank? The awful injustice of lifemaddens me. After all, what have they done in comparison with what Ihave done?

"Close the eyes of all of us now and fifty years hence, or a hundredyears hence, no one will know anything about Curzon or Wyndham or Blunt:whether they lived or died will be a matter of indifference to everyone;but my comedies and my stories and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' will beknown and read by millions, and even my unhappy fate will call forthworld-wide sympathy. "

It was all true enough, and good to keep in mind; but even when Oscarspoke of greater men than himself, he took the same attitude: hisself-esteem was extraordinary. He did not compare his work with that ofothers; was not anxious to find his true place, as even Shakespeare was. From the beginning, from youth on, he was convinced that he was a greatman and going to do great things. Many of us have the same belief andare just as persuaded, but the belief is not ever present with us as itwas with Oscar, moulding all his actions. For instance, I remarked oncethat his handwriting was unforgettable and characteristic. "I worked atit, " he said, "as a boy; I wanted a distinctive handwriting; it had tobe clear and beautiful and peculiar to me. At length I got it but ittook time and patience. I always wanted everything about me to bedistinctive, " he added, smiling. 

He was proud of his physical appearance, inordinately pleased with hisgreat height, vain of it even. "Height gives distinction, " he declared, and once even went so far as to say, "One can't picture Napoleon assmall; one thinks only of his magnificent head and forgets the littlepodgy figure; it must have been a great nuisance to him: small men haveno dignity. "

All this utterly unconscious of the fact that most tall men have no everpresent-sense of their height as an advantage. Yet on the whole oneagrees with Montaigne that height is the chief beauty of a man: it givespresence. 

Oscar never learned anything from criticism; he had a good deal ofpersonal dignity in spite of his amiability, and when one found faultwith his work, he would smile vaguely or change the subject as if itdidn't interest him. 

Again and again I played on his self-esteem to get him to write; butalways met the same answer. 

"Oh, Frank, it's impossible, impossible for me to work under thesedisgraceful conditions. "

"But you can have better conditions now and lots of money if you'llbegin to work. "

He shook his head despairingly. Again and again I tried, but failed tomove him, even when I dangled money before him. I didn't then know thathe was receiving regularly more than £300 a year. I thought he wascompletely destitute, dependent on such casual help as friends couldgive him. I have a letter from him about this time asking me for even£5[25] as if he were in extremest need. 

On one of my visits to Paris after discussing his position, I could nothelp saying to him:

"The only thing that will make you write, Oscar, is absolute, blankpoverty. That's the sharpest spur after all--necessity. "

"You don't know me, " he replied sharply. "I would kill myself. I canendure to the end; but to be absolutely destitute would show me suicideas the open door. "

Suddenly his depressed manner changed and his whole face lighted up. 

"Isn't it comic, Frank, the way the English talk of the 'open door, 'while their doors are always locked, and barred, and bolted, even theirchurch doors? Yet it is not hypocrisy in them; they simply cannot seethemselves as they are; they have no imagination. "

A long pause, and he went on gravely:

"Suicide, Frank, is always the temptation of the unfortunate, a greattemptation. "

"Suicide is the natural end of the world-weary, " I replied; "but youenjoy life intensely. For you to talk of suicide is ridiculous. "

"Do you know that my wife is dead, Frank?"[26]

"I had heard it, " I said. 

"My way back to hope and a new life ends in her grave, " he went on. "Everything I do, Frank, is irrevocable. "

He spoke with a certain grave sincerity. 

"The great tragedies of the world are all final and complete; Socrateswould not escape death, though Crito opened the prison door for him. Icould not avoid prison, though you showed me the way to safety. We arefated to suffer, don't you think? as an example to humanity--'an echoand a light unto eternity. '"

"I think it would be finer, instead of taking the punishment lying down, to trample it under your feet, and make it a rung of the ladder. "

"Oh, Frank, you would turn all the tragedies into triumphs, you are afighter. My life is done. "

"You love life, " I cried, "as much as ever you did; more than anyone Ihave ever seen. "

"It is true, " he cried, his face lighting up quickly, "more than anyone, Frank. Life delights me. The people passing on the Boulevards, the playof the sunshine in the trees; the noise, the quick movement of the cabs, the costumes of the _cochers_ and _sergents-de-ville_; workers andbeggars, pimps and prostitutes--all please me to the soul, charm me, andif you would only let me talk instead of bothering me to write I shouldbe quite happy. Why should I write any more? I have done enough forfame. 

"I will tell you a story, Frank, " he broke off, and he told me a slightthing about Judas. The little tale was told delightfully, with eloquentinflections of voice and still more eloquent pauses. .. . 

"The end of all this is, " I said before going back to London, "that youwill not write?"

"No, no, Frank, " he said, "that I cannot write under these conditions. If I had money enough; if I could shake off Paris, and forget thoseawful rooms of mine and get to the Riviera for the winter and live insome seaside village of the Latins with the blue sea at my feet, and theblue sky above, and God's sunlight about me and no care for money, thenI would write as naturally as a bird sings, because I should be happyand could not help it. .. . 

"You write stories taken from the fight of life; you are careless ofsurroundings, I am a poet and can only sing in the sunshine when I amhappy. "

"All right, " I said, snatching at the half-promise. "It is just possiblethat I may get hold of some money during the next few months, and, if Ido, you shall go and winter in the South, and live as you please withoutcare of money. If you can only sing when the cage is beautiful andsunlight floods it, I know the very place for you. "

With this sort of vague understanding we parted for some months. 

FOOTNOTES:

[25] _Cfr. _ Appendix. 

[26] See Appendix. 

CHAPTER XXII

"A GREAT ROMANTIC PASSION"

There is no more difficult problem for the writer, no harder task thanto decide how far he should allow himself to go in picturing humanweakness. We have all come from the animal and can all without anyassistance from books imagine easily enough the effects of unrestrainedself-indulgence. Yet it is instructive and pregnant with warning toremark that, as soon as the sheet anchor of high resolve is gone, thefrailties of man tend to become master-vices. All our civilisation isartificially built up by effort; all high humanity is the reward ofconstant striving against natural desires. 

In the fall of this year, 1898, I sold _The Saturday Review_ to LordHardwicke and his friends, and as soon as the purchase was completed, Ithink in November, I wired to Oscar that I should be in Paris in a shorttime, and ready to take him to the South for his holiday. I sent himsome money to pave the way. 

A few days later I crossed and wired to him from Calais to dine with meat Durand's, and to begin dinner if I happened to be late. 

While waiting for dinner, I said:

"I want to stay two or three days in Paris to see some pictures. Wouldyou be ready to start South on Thursday next?" It was then Monday, Ithink. 

"On Thursday?" he repeated. "Yes, Frank, I think so. "

"There is some money for anything you may want to buy, " I said andhanded him a cheque I had made payable to self and signed, for he knewwhere he could cash it. 

"How good of you, Frank, I cannot thank you enough. You start onThursday, " he added, as if considering it. 

"If you would rather wait a little, " I said, "say so: I'm quitewilling. "

"No, Frank, I think Thursday will do. We are really going to the Southfor the whole winter. How wonderful; how gorgeous it will be. "

We had a great dinner and talked and talked. He spoke of some of the newFrenchmen, and at great length of Pierre Louÿs, whom he described as adisciple:

"It was I, Frank, who induced him to write his 'Aphrodite' in prose. " Hespoke, too, of the Grand Guignol Theatre. 

"Le Grand Guignol is the first theatre in Paris. It looks like anonconformist chapel, a barn of a room with a gallery at the back and alittle wooden stage. There you see the primitive tragedies of real life. They are as ugly and as fascinating as life itself. You must see it andwe will go to Antoine's as well: you must see Antoine's new piece; he isdoing great work. "

We kept dinner up to an unconscionable hour. I had much to tell ofLondon and much to hear of Paris, and we talked and drank coffee tillone o'clock, and when I proposed supper Oscar accepted the idea withenthusiasm. 

"I have often lunched with you from two o'clock till nine, Frank, andnow I am going to dine with you from nine o'clock till breakfastto-morrow morning. "

"What shall we drink?" I asked. 

"The same champagne, Frank, don't you think?" he said, pulling his jowl;"there is no wine so inspiring as that dry champagne with the exquisite_bouquet_. You were the first to say my plays were the champagne ofliterature. "

When we came out it was three o'clock and I was tired and sleepy with myjourney, and Oscar had drunk perhaps more than was good for him. Knowinghow he hated walking I got a _voiture de cercle_ and told him to takeit, and I would walk to my hotel. He thanked me and seemed to hesitate. 

"What is it now?" I asked, wanting to get to bed. 

"Just a word with you, " he said, and drew me away from the carriagewhere the _chasseur_ was waiting with the rug. When he got me three orfour paces away he said, hesitatingly:

"Frank, could you . .. Can you let me have a few pounds? I'm very hardup. "

I stared at him; I had given him a cheque at the beginning of thedinner: had he forgotten? Or did he perchance want to keep the hundredpounds intact for some reason? Suddenly it occurred to me that he mightbe without even enough for the carriage. I took out a hundred franc noteand gave it to him. 

"Thank you, so much, " he said, thrusting it into his waistcoat pocket, "it's very kind of you. "

"You will turn up to-morrow at lunch at one?" I said, as I put him intothe little brougham. 

"Yes, of course, yes, " he cried, and I turned away. 

Next day at lunch he seemed to meet me with some embarrassment:

"Frank, I want to ask you something. I'm really confused about lastnight; we dined most wisely, if too well. This morning I found you hadgiven me a cheque, and I found besides in my waistcoat pocket a note fora hundred francs. Did I ask you for it at the end? 'Tap' you, the Frenchcall it, " he added, trying to laugh. 

I nodded. 

"How dreadful!" he cried. "How dreadful poverty is! I had forgotten thatyou had given me a cheque, and I was so hard up, so afraid you might goaway without giving me anything, that I asked you for it. Isn't povertydreadful?"

I nodded; I could not say a word: the fact told so much. 

The chastened mood of self-condemnation did not last long with him or godeep; soon he was talking as merrily and gaily as ever. 

Before parting I said to him:

"You won't forget that you are going on Thursday night?"

"Oh, really!" he cried, to my surprise, "Thursday is very near; I don'tknow whether I shall be able to come. "

"What on earth do you mean?" I asked. 

"The truth is, you know, I have debts to pay, and I have not enough. "

"But I will give you more, " I cried, "what will clear you?"

"Fifty more I think will do. How good you are!"

"I will bring it with me to-morrow morning. "

"In notes please, will you? French money. I find I shall want it to paysome little things at once, and the time is short. "

I thought nothing of the matter. The next day at lunch I gave him themoney in French notes. That night I said to him:

"You know we are going away to-morrow evening: I hope you'll be ready? Ihave got the tickets for the _Train de Luxe_. "

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he cried, "I can't be ready. "

"What is it now?" I asked. 

"Well, it's money. Some more debts have come in. "

"Why will you not be frank with me, and tell me what you owe? I willgive you a cheque for it. I don't want to drag it out of you bit by bit. Tell me a sum that will make you free, and I will give it to you. I wantyou to have a perfect six months, and how can you if you are botheredwith debts?"

"How kind you are to me! Do you really mean it?"

"Of course I do. "

"Really?" he said. 

"Yes, " I said, "tell me what it is. "

"I think, I believe . .. Would another fifty be too much?"

"I will give it you to-morrow. Are you sure that will be enough?"

"Oh, yes, Frank; but let's go on Sunday. Sunday is such a good day fortravelling, and it's always so dull everywhere, we might just as wellspend it on the train. Besides, no one travels on Sunday in France, sowe are sure to be able to take our ease in our train. Won't Sunday do, Frank?"

"Of course it will, " I replied laughing; but a day or two later he wasagain embarrassed, and again told me it was money, and then he confessedto me that he was afraid at first I should not have paid all his debts, if I had known how much they were, and so he thought by telling me ofthem little by little, he would make sure at least of something. Thispitiful, pitiable confession depressed me on his account. It showedpractice in such petty tricks and all too little pride. Of course it didnot alter my admiration of his qualities; nor weaken in any degree myresolve to give him a fair chance. If he could be saved, I wasdetermined to save him. 

We met at the Gare de Lyons on Sunday evening. I found he had dined atthe buffet: there was a surprising number of empty bottles on the table;he seemed terribly depressed. 

"Someone was dining with me, Frank, a friend, " he offered by way ofexplanation. 

"Why did he not wait? I should like to have seen him. "

"Oh, he was no one you would have cared about, Frank, " he replied. 

I sat with him and took a cup of coffee, whilst waiting for the train. He was wretchedly gloomy; scarcely spoke indeed; I could not make itout. From time to time he sighed heavily, and I noticed that his eyeswere red, as if he had been crying. 

"What is the matter?" I asked. 

"I will tell you later, perhaps. It is very hard; parting is likedying, " and his eyes filled with tears. 

We were soon in the train running out into the night. I was aslight-hearted as could be. At length I was free of journalism, Ithought, and I was going to the South to write my Shakespeare book, andOscar would work, too, when the conditions were pleasant. But I couldnot win a single smile from him; he sat downcast, sighing hopelesslyfrom time to time. 

"What on earth's the matter?" I cried. "Here you are going to thesunshine, to blue skies, and the wine-tinted Mediterranean, and you'renot content. We shall stop in a hotel near a little sun-baked valleyrunning down to the sea. You walk from the hotel over a carpet of pineneedles, and when you get into the open, violets and anemones bloomabout your feet, and the scent of rosemary and myrtle will be in yournostrils; yet instead of singing for joy the bird droops his feathersand hangs his head as if he had the 'pip. '"

"Oh, don't, " he cried, "don't, " and he looked at me with tears fillinghis eyes; "you don't know, Frank, what a great romantic passion is. "

"Is that what you are suffering from?"

"Yes, a great romantic passion. "

"Good God!" I laughed; "who has inspired this new devotion?"

"Don't make fun of me, Frank, or I will not tell you; but if you willlisten I will try to tell you all about it, for I think you should know, besides, I think telling it may ease my pain, so come into the cabin andlisten. 

"Do you remember once in the summer you wired me from Calais to meet youat Maire's restaurant, meaning to go afterwards to Antoine's Theatre, and I was very late? You remember, the evening Rostand was dining at thenext table. Well, it was that evening. I drove up to Maire's in time, and I was just getting out of the victoria when a little soldier passed, and our eyes met. My heart stood still; he had great dark eyes and anexquisite olive-dark face--a Florentine bronze, Frank, by a greatmaster. He looked like Napoleon when he was first Consul, only--lessimperious, more beautiful. .. . 

"I got out hypnotised, and followed him down the Boulevard as in adream; the _cocher_ came running after me, I remember, and I gave him afive franc piece, and waved him off; I had no idea what I owed him; Idid not want to hear his voice; it might break the spell; mutely Ifollowed my fate. I overtook the boy in a short time and asked him tocome and have a drink, and he said to me in his quaint French way:

"'_Ce n'est pas de refus!_' (Too good to refuse. )

"We went into a café, and I ordered something, I forget what, and webegan to talk. I told him I liked his face; I had had a friend once likehim; and I wanted to know all about him. I was in a hurry to meet you, but I had to make friends with him first. He began by telling me allabout his mother, Frank, yes, his mother. " Oscar smiled here in spite ofhimself. 

"But at last I got from him that he was always free on Thursdays, and hewould be very glad to see me then, though he did not know what I couldsee in him to like. I found out that the thing he desired most in theworld was a bicycle; he talked of nickel-plated handle bars, andchains--and finally I told him it might be arranged. He was verygrateful and so we made a rendezvous for the next Thursday, and I cameon at once to dine with you. "

"Goodness!" I cried laughing. "A soldier, a nickel-plated bicycle and agreat romantic passion!"

"If I had said a brooch, or a necklace, some trinket which would havecost ten times as much, you would have found it quite natural. "

"Yes, " I admitted, "but I don't think I'd have introduced the necklacethe first evening if there had been any romance in the affair, and thenickel-plated bicycle to me seems irresistibly comic. "

"Frank, " he cried reprovingly, "I cannot talk to you if you laugh; I amquite serious. I don't believe you know what a great romantic passionis; I am going to convince you that you don't know the meaning of it. "

"Fire away, " I replied, "I am here to be convinced. But I don't thinkyou will teach me that there is any romance except where there isanother sex. "

"Don't talk to me of the other sex, " he cried with distaste in voice andmanner. "First of all in beauty there is no comparison between a boy anda girl. Think of the enormous, fat hips which every sculptor has to tonedown, and make lighter, and the great udder breasts which the artisthas to make small and round and firm, and then picture the exquisiteslim lines of a boy's figure. No one who loves beauty can hesitate for amoment. The Greeks knew that; they had the sense of plastic beauty, andthey understood that there is no comparison. "

"You must not say that, " I replied; "you are going too far; the Venus ofMilo is as fine as any Apollo, in sheer beauty; the flowing curvesappeal to me more than your weedy lines. "

"Perhaps they do, Frank, " he retorted, "but you must see that the boy isfar more beautiful. It is your sex-instinct, your sinful sex-instinctwhich prevents you worshipping the higher form of beauty. Height andlength of limb give distinction; slightness gives grace; women aresquat! You must admit that the boy's figure is more beautiful; theappeal it makes far higher, more spiritual. "

"Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, " I barked. "Your sculptorknows it is just as hard to find an ideal boy's figure as an idealgirl's; and if he has to modify the most perfect girl's figure, he hasto modify the most perfect boy's figure as well. If he refines thegirl's breasts and hips he has to pad the boy's ribs and tone down thegreat staring knee-bones and the unlovely large ankles; but please goon, I enjoy your special pleading and your romantic passion interestsme; though you have not yet come to the romance, let alone the passion. "

"Oh, Frank, " he cried, "the story is full of romance; every meeting wasan event in my life. You have no idea how intelligent he is; everyevening we spent together he was different; he had grown, developed. Ilent him books and he read them, and his mind opened from week to weeklike a flower, till in a short time, a few months, he became anexquisite companion and disciple. Frank, no girl grows like that; theyhave no minds, and what intelligence they have is all given to wretchedvanities, and personal jealousies. There is no intellectualcompanionship possible with them. They want to talk of dress, and not ofideas, and how persons look and not of what they are. How can you havethe flower of romance without a brotherhood of soul?"

"Sisterhood of soul seems to me infinitely finer, " I said, "but go on. "

"I shall convince you, " he declared; "I must be able to, because allreason is on my side. Let me give you one instance. Of course my boy hadhis bicycle; he used to come to me on it and go to and fro from thebarracks on it. When you came to Paris in September, you invited me todine one night, one Thursday night, when he was to come to me. I toldhim I had to go and dine with you. He didn't mind; but was glad when Isaid I had an English editor for a friend, glad that I should havesomeone to talk to about London and the people I used to know. If it hadbeen a woman I loved, I should have been forced to tell lies: she wouldhave been jealous of my past. I told him the truth, and when I spokeabout you he grew interested and excited, and at last he put a wishbefore me. He wanted to know if he might come and leave his bicycleoutside and look through the window of the restaurant, just to see us atdinner. I told him there might possibly be women-guests. He replied thathe would be delighted to see me in dress-clothes talking to gentlemenand ladies. 

"Might he come?" he persisted. 

"Of course I said he could come, and he came, but I never saw him. 

"The next time we met he told me all about it; how he had picked you outfrom my description of you, and how he knew Baüer from his likeness toDumas _père_, and he was delightful about it all. 

"Now, Frank, would any girl have come to see you enjoying yourself withother people? Would any girl have stared through the window and beenglad to see you inside amusing yourself with other men and women? Youknow there's not a girl on earth with such unselfish devotion. There isno comparison, I tell you, between the boy and the girl; I say againdeliberately, you don't know what a great romantic passion is or thehigh unselfishness of true love. "

"You have put it with extraordinary ability, " I said, "as of course Iknew you would. I think I can understand the charm of suchcompanionship; but only from the young boy's point of view, not fromyours. I can understand how you have opened to him a new heaven and anew earth, but what has he given you? Nothing. On the other hand anyfinely gifted girl would have given you something. If you had reallytouched her heart, you would have found in her some instinctivetenderness, some proof of unselfish, exquisite devotion that would havemade your eyes prickle with a sense of inferiority. 

"After all, the essence of love, the finest spirit of that companionshipyou speak about, of the sisterhood of soul, is that the other personshould quicken you, too; open to you new horizons, discover newpossibilities; and how could your soldier boy help you in any way? Hebrought you no new ideas, no new feelings, could reveal no new thoughtsto you. I can see no romance, no growth of soul in such a connection. But the girl is different from the man in all ways. You have as much tolearn from her as she has from you, and neither of you can come toideal growth in any other way: you are both half-parts ofhumanity--complements, and in need of each other. "

"You have put it very cunningly, Frank, as I expected you would, toreturn your compliment, but you must admit that with the boy, at anyrate, you have no jealousy, no mean envyings, no silly inanities. Thereit is, Frank, some of us hate 'cats. ' I can give reasons for my dislike, which to me are conclusive. "

"The boy who would beg for a bicycle is not likely to be without meanenvyings, " I replied. "Now you have talked about romance andcompanionship, " I went on, "but can you really feel passion?"

"Frank, what a silly question! Do you remember how Socrates says he feltwhen the chlamys blew aside and showed him the limbs of Charmides? Don'tyou remember how the blood throbbed in his veins and how he grew blindwith desire, a scene more magical than the passionate love-lines ofSappho?

"There is no other passion to be compared with it. A woman's passion isdegrading. She is continually tempting you. She wants your desire as asatisfaction for her vanity more than anything else, and her vanity isinsatiable if her desire is weak, and so she continually tempts you toexcess, and then blames you for the physical satiety and disgust whichshe herself has created. With a boy there is no vanity in the matter, nojealousy, and therefore none of the tempting, not a tenth part of thecoarseness; and consequently desire is always fresh and keen. Oh, Frank, believe me, you don't know what a great romantic passion is. "

"What you say only shows how little you know women, " I replied. "If youexplained all this to the girl who loves you, she would see it at once, and her tenderness would grow with her self-abnegation; we all grow bygiving. If the woman cares more than the man for caresses and kindness, it is because she feels more tenderness, and is capable of intenserdevotion. "

"You don't know what you are talking about, Frank, " he retorted. "Yourepeat the old accepted commonplaces. The boy came to the station withme to-night. He knew I was going away for six months. His heart was likelead, tears gathered in his eyes again and again in spite of himself, and yet he tried to be gay and bright for my sake; he wanted to show mehow glad he was that I should be happy, how thankful he was for all Ihad done for him, and the new mental life I had created in him. He didhis best to keep my courage up. I cried, but he shook his tears away. 'Six months will soon be over, ' he said, 'and perhaps you will comeback to me, and I shall be glad again. ' Meantime he will write charmingletters to me, I'm sure. 

"Would any girl take a parting like that? No; she would be jealous andenvious, and wonder why you were enjoying yourself in the South whileshe was condemned to live in the rainy, cold North. Would she ask you totell her of all the beautiful girls you met, and whether they werecharming and bright, as the boy asked me to tell him of all theinteresting people I should meet, so that he, too, might take aninterest in them? A girl in his place would have been ill with envy andmalice and jealousy. Again I repeat, you don't know what a high romanticpassion is. "

"Your argument is illogical, " I cried, "if the girl is jealous, it isbecause she has given herself more completely: her exclusiveness is theother side of her devotion and tenderness; she wants to do everythingfor you, to be with you and help you in every way, and in case ofillness or poverty or danger, you would find how much more she had togive than your red-breeched soldier. "

"That's merely a rude gibe and not an argument, Frank. "

"As good an argument as your 'cats, '" I replied; "your little soldierboy with his nickel-plated bicycle only makes me grin, " and I grinned. 

"You are unpardonable, " he cried, "unpardonable, and in your soul youknow that all the weight of argument is on my side. In your soul youmust know it. What is the food of passion, Frank, but beauty, beautyalone, beauty always, and in beauty of form and vigour of life there isno comparison. If you loved beauty as intensely as I do, you would feelas I feel. It is beauty which gives me joy, makes me drunk as with wine, blind with insatiable desire. .. . "

CHAPTER XXIII

He was an incomparable companion, perfectly amiable, yet vivid, andeager as a child, always interested and interesting. We awoke at Avignonand went out in pyjamas and overcoats to stretch our legs and get a bowlof coffee on the platform in the pearly grey light of early morning. After coffee and cigarettes he led the way to the other end of theplatform, that we might catch a glimpse of the town wall which, thoughterribly restored, yet, when seen from a distance, transports one backfive hundred years to the age of chivalry. 

"How I should have loved to be a troubadour, or a _trouvère_, Frank;that was my true _métier_, to travel from castle to castle singing lovesongs and telling romantic stories to while away the tedium of the livesof the great. Fancy the reception they would have given me for bringinga new joy into their castled isolation, new ideas, new passions--abreath of gossip and scandal from the outside world to relieve theintolerable boredom of the middle ages. I should have been kept at theCourt of Aix: I think they would have bound me with flower-chains, andmy fame would have spread all through the sunny vineyards and greyolive-clad hills of Provence. "

When we got into the train again he began:

"We stop next at Marseilles, don't we, Frank? A great historic town fornearly three thousand years. One really feels a barbarian in comparison, and yet all I know of Marseilles is that it is famous for_bouillabaisse_. Suppose we stop and get some?"

"_Bouillabaisse_, " I replied, "is not peculiar to Marseilles or the _RueCannebière_. You can get it all along this coast. There is only onething necessary to it and that is _rascasse_, a fish caught only amongthe rocks: you will get excellent _bouillabaisse_ at lunch where we aregoing. "

"Where are we going? You have not told me yet. "

"It is for you to decide, " I answered. "If you want perfect quiet thereare two places in the Esterel mountains, Agay and La Napoule. Agay is inthe middle of the Esterel. You would be absolutely alone there exceptfor the visit of an occasional French painter. La Napoule is eight orten miles from Cannes, so that you are within reach of a town and itsamusements. There is still another place I had thought of, quieter thaneither, in the mountains behind Nice. "

"Nice sounds wonderful, Frank, but I should meet too many English peoplethere who would know me, and they are horribly rude. I think we willchoose La Napoule. "

About ten o'clock we got out at La Napoule and installed ourselves inthe little hotel, taking up three of the best rooms on the second or topfloor, much to the delight of the landlord. At twelve we had breakfastunder a big umbrella in the open air, looking over the sea. I had putthe landlord on his mettle, and he gave us a fry of little red mullet, which made us understand how tasteless whitebait are: then a plainbeefsteak _aux pommes_, a morsel of cheese, and a sweet omelette. Weboth agreed that we had had a most excellent breakfast. The coffee lefta good deal to be desired, and there was no champagne on the list fit todrink; but both these faults could be remedied by the morrow, and wereremedied. 

We spent the rest of the day wandering between the seashore and thepine-clad hills. The next morning I put in some work, but in theafternoon I was free to walk and explore. On one of my first tramps Idiscovered a monastery among the hills hundreds of feet above the sea, built and governed by an Italian monk. I got to know the PèreVergile[27] and had a great talk with him. He was both wise and strong, with ingratiating, gentle manners. Had he gone as a boy from his littleItalian fishing village to New York or Paris, he would have certainlycome to greatness and honour. One afternoon I took Oscar to see him: themonastery was not more than three-quarters of an hour's stroll from ourhotel; but Oscar grumbled at the walk as a nuisance, said it was milesand miles; the road, too, was rough, and the sun hot. The truth was, hewas abnormally lazy. But he fascinated the Italian with his courteousmanner and vivid speech, and as soon as we were alone the Abbé asked mewho he was. 

"He must be a great man, " he said, "he has the stamp of a great man, andhe must have lived in courts: he has the charming, graceful, smilingcourtesy of the great. "

"Yes, " I nodded mysteriously, "a great man--incognito. "

The Abbé kept us to dinner, made us taste of his oldest wines, and aspecial liqueur of his own distilling; told us how he had built themonastery with no money, and when we exclaimed with wonder, reproved usgently:

"All great things are built with faith, and not with money; why wonderthat this little building stands firmly on that everlastingfoundation?"

When we came out of the monastery it was already night, and themoonlight was throwing fantastic leafy shadows on the path, as we walkeddown through the avenue of forest to the sea shore. 

"You remember those words of Vergil, Frank--_per amica silentialunæ_--they always seem to me indescribably beautiful; the most magicline about the moon ever written, except Browning's in the poem in whichhe mentioned Keats--'him even. ' I love that 'amica silentia. ' What abeautiful nature the man had who could feel 'the _friendly_ silences ofthe moon. '"

When we got down the hill he declared himself tired. 

"Tired after a mile?" I asked. 

"Tired to death, worn out, " he said, laughing at his own laziness. 

"Shall we get a boat and row across the bay?"

"How splendid! of course, let's do it, " and we went down to the landingstage. I had never seen the water so calm; half the bay was veiled bythe mountain, and opaque like unpolished steel; a little further out, the water was a purple shield, emblazoned with shimmering silver. Wecalled a fisherman and explained what we wanted. When we got into theboat, to my astonishment, Oscar began calling the fisher boy by hisname; evidently he knew him quite well. When we landed I went up fromthe boat to the hotel, leaving Oscar and the boy together. .. . 

A fortnight taught me a good deal about Oscar at this time; he wasintensely indolent: quite content to kill time by the hour talking tothe fisher lads, or he would take a little carriage and drive to Cannesand amuse himself at some wayside café. 

He never cared to walk and I walked for miles daily, so that we spentonly one or at most two afternoons a week together, meeting so seldomthat nearly all our talks were significant. Several times contemporarynames came up and I was compelled to notice for the first time thatreally he was contemptuous of almost everyone, and had a sharp word tosay about many who were supposed to be his friends. One day we spoke ofRicketts and Shannon; I was saying that had Ricketts lived in Paris hewould have had a great reputation: many of his designs I thoughtextraordinary, and his intellect was peculiarly French--_mordant_ even. Oscar did not like to hear praise of anyone. 

"Do you know my word for them, Frank? I like it. I call them 'Temper andTemperament. '"

Was his punishment making him a little spiteful or was it the temptationof the witty phrase?

"What do you think of Arthur Symons?" I asked. 

"Oh, Frank, I said of him long ago that he was a sad example of anEgoist who had no Ego. "

"And what of your compatriot, George Moore? He's popular enough, " Icontinued. 

"Popular, Frank, as if that counted. George Moore has conducted hiswhole education in public. He had written two or three books before hefound out there was such a thing as English grammar. He at onceannounced his discovery and so won the admiration of the illiterate. Afew years later he discovered that there was something architectural instyle, that sentences had to be built up into a paragraph, andparagraphs into chapters and so on. Naturally he cried this revelation, too, from the housetops, and thus won the admiration of the journalistswho had been making rubble-heaps all their lives without knowing it. I'mmuch afraid, Frank, in spite of all his efforts, he will die before hereaches the level from which writers start. It's a pity because he hascertainly a little real talent. He differs from Symons in that he has anEgo, but his Ego has five senses and no soul. "

"What about Bernard Shaw?" I probed further, "after all he's going tocount. "

"Yes, Frank, a man of real ability but with a bleak mind. Humorousgleams as of wintry sunlight on a bare, harsh landscape. He has nopassion, no feeling, and without passionate feeling how can one be anartist? He believes in nothing, loves nothing, not even Bernard Shaw, and really, on the whole, I don't wonder at his indifference, " and helaughed mischievously. 

"And Wells?" I asked. 

"A scientific Jules Verne, " he replied with a shrug. 

"Did you ever care for Hardy?" I continued. 

"Not greatly. He has just found out that women have legs underneaththeir dresses, and this discovery has almost wrecked his life. He writespoetry, I believe, in his leisure moments, and I am afraid it will bevery hard reading. He knows nothing of love; passion to him is achildish illness like measles--poor unhappy spirit!"

"You might be describing Mrs. Humphry Ward, " I cried. 

"God forbid, Frank, " he exclaimed with such mock horror I had to laugh. "After all, Hardy is a writer and a great landscape painter. "

"I don't know why it is, " he went on, "but I am always match-making whenI think of English celebrities. I should so much like to have introducedMrs. Humphry Ward blushing at eighteen or twenty to Swinburne, whowould of course have bitten her neck in a furious kiss, and she wouldhave run away and exposed him in court, or else have suffered agonies ofmingled delight and shame in silence. 

"And if one could only marry Thomas Hardy to Victoria Cross he mighthave gained some inkling of real passion with which to animate hislittle keepsake pictures of starched ladies. A great many writers, Ithink, might be saved in this way, but there would still be left theCorellis and Hall Caines that one could do nothing with except bind themback to back, which would not even tantalise them, and throw them intothe river, a new _noyade_: the Thames at Barking, I think, would beabout the place for them. .. . "

"Where do you go every afternoon?" I asked him once casually. 

"I go to Cannes, Frank, and sit in a café and look across the sea toCapri, where Tiberius used to sit like a spider watching, and I think ofmyself as an exile, the victim of one of his inscrutable suspicions, orelse I am in Rome looking at the people dancing naked, but with gildedlips, through the streets at the _Floralia_. I sup with the _arbiterelegantiarum_ and come back to La Napoule, Frank, " and he pulled hisjowl, "to the simple life and the charm of restful friendship. "

More and more clearly I saw that the effort, the hard work, of writingwas altogether beyond him: he was now one of those men of genius, talkers merely, half artists, half dreamers, whom Balzac describescontemptuously as wasting their lives, "talking to hear themselvestalk"; capable indeed of fine conceptions and of occasional finephrases, but incapable of the punishing toil of execution; charmingcompanions, fated in the long run to fall to misery and destitution. 

Constant creation is the first condition of art as it is the firstcondition of life. 

I asked him one day if he remembered the terrible passage about those"eunuchs of art" in "La Cousine Bette. "

"Yes, Frank, " he replied; "but Balzac was probably envious of theartist-talker; at any rate, we who talk should not be condemned by thoseto whom we dedicate our talents. It is for posterity to blame us; butafter all I have written a good deal. Do you remember how Browning'sSarto defends himself?

 "Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try. "

He did not see that Balzac, one of the greatest talkers that ever livedaccording to Théophile Gautier, was condemning the temptation to whichhe himself had no doubt yielded too often. To my surprise, Oscar did noteven read much now. He was not eager to hear new thoughts, a littlerebellious to any new mental influence. He had reached his zenith, Isuppose: had begun to fossilise, as men do when they cease to grow. 

One day at lunch I questioned him:

"You told me once that you always imagined yourself in the place ofevery historic personage. Suppose you had been Jesus, what religionwould you have preached?"

"What a wonderful question!" he cried. "What religion is mine? Whatbelief have I?

"I believe most of all in personal liberty for every human soul. Eachman ought to do what he likes, to develop as he will. England, or ratherLondon, for I know little of England outside London, was an ideal placeto me, till they punished me because I did not share their tastes. Whatan absurdity it all was, Frank: how dared they punish me for what isgood in my eyes? How dared they?" and he fell into moody thought. .. . Theidea of a new gospel did not really interest him. 

It was about this time he first told me of a new play he had in mind. 

"It has a great scene, Frank, " he said. "Imagine a _roué_ of forty-fivewho is married; incorrigible, of course, Frank, a great noble who getsthe person he is in love with to come and stay with him in the country. One evening his wife, who has gone upstairs to lie down with aheadache, is behind a screen in a room half asleep; she is awakened byher husband's courting. She cannot move, she is bound breathless to hercouch; she hears everything. Then, Frank, the husband comes to the doorand finds it locked, and knowing that his wife is inside with the host, beats upon the door and will have entrance, and while the guilty oneswhisper together--the woman blaming the man, the man trying to think ofsome excuse, some way out of the net--the wife gets up very quietly andturns on the lights while the two cowards stare at her with wildsurmise. She passes to the door and opens it and the husband rushes into find his hostess as well as the host and his wife. I think it is agreat scene, Frank, a great stage picture. "

"It is, " I said, "a great scene; why don't you write it?"

"Perhaps I shall, Frank, one of these days, but now I am thinking ofsome poetry, a 'Ballad of a Fisher Boy, ' a sort of companion to 'TheBallad of Reading Gaol, ' in which I sing of liberty instead of prison, joy instead of sorrow, a kiss instead of an execution. I shall do thisjoy-song much better than I did the song of sorrow and despair. "

"Like Davidson's 'Ballad of a Nun, '" I said, for the sake of sayingsomething. 

"Naturally Davidson would write the 'Ballad of a Nun, ' Frank; his talentis Scotch and severe; but I should like to write 'The Ballad of a FisherBoy, '" and he fell to dreaming. 

The thought of his punishment was oft with him. It seemed to himhideously wrong and unjust. But he never questioned the right of societyto punish. He did not see that, if you once grant that, the wrong doneto him could be defended. 

"I used to think myself a lord of life, " he said. "How dared thoselittle wretches condemn me and punish me? Everyone of them tainted witha sensuality which I loathe. "

To call him out of this bitter way of regret I quoted Shakespeare'ssonnet:

 "For why should others' false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good?"

"His complaint is exactly yours, Oscar. "

"It's astonishing, Frank, how well you know him, and yet you deny hisintimacy with Pembroke. To you he is a living man; you always talk ofhim as if he had just gone out of the room, and yet you persist inbelieving in his innocence. "

"You misapprehend me, " I said, "the passion of his life was for MaryFitton, to give her a name; I mean the 'dark lady' of the sonnets, whowas Beatrice, Cressida and Cleopatra, and you yourself admit that a manwho has a mad passion for a woman is immune, I think the doctors callit, to other influences. "

"Oh, yes, Frank, of course; but how could Shakespeare with his beautifulnature love a woman to that mad excess?"

"Shakespeare hadn't your overwhelming love of plastic beauty, " Ireplied; "he fell in love with a dominant personality, the complement ofhis own yielding, amiable disposition. "

"That's it, " he broke in, "our opposites attract us irresistibly--thecharm of the unknown!"

"You often talk now, " I went on, "as if you had never loved a woman; yetyou must have loved--more than one. "

"My salad days, Frank, " he quoted, smiling, "when I was green injudgment, cold of blood. "

"No, no, " I persisted, "it is not a great while since you praised LadySo and So and the Terrys enthusiastically. "

"Lady ----, " he began gravely (and I could not but notice that the meretitle seduced him to conventional, poetic language), "moves like a lilyin water; I always think of her as a lily; just as I used to think ofLily Langtry as a tulip, with a figure like a Greek vase carved inivory. But I always adored the Terrys: Marion is a great actress withsubtle charm and enigmatic fascination: she was my 'Woman of noimportance, ' artificial and enthralling; she belongs to my theatre--"

As he seemed to have lost the thread, I questioned again. 

"And Ellen?"

"Oh, Ellen's a perfect wonder, " he broke out, "a great character. Do youknow her history?" And then, without waiting for an answer, hecontinued:

"She began as a model for Watts, the painter, when she was only somefifteen or sixteen years of age. In a week she read him as easily as ifhe had been a printed book. He treated her with condescending courtesy, _en grand seigneur_, and, naturally, she had her revenge on him. 

"One day her mother came in and asked Watts what he was going to doabout Ellen. Watts said he didn't understand. 'You have made Ellen inlove with you, ' said the mother, and it is impossible that could havehappened unless you had been attentive to her. '

"Poor Watts protested and protested, but the mother broke down andsobbed, and said the girl's heart would be broken, and at length, indespair, Watts asked what he was to do, and the mother could onlysuggest marriage. 

"Finally they were married. "

"You don't mean that, " I cried, "I never knew that Watts had marriedEllen Terry. "

"Oh, yes, " said Oscar, "they were married all right. The mother saw tothat, and to do him justice, Watts kept the whole family like agentleman. But like an idealist, or, as a man of the world would say, afool, he was ashamed of his wife; he showed great reserve to her, andwhen he gave his usual dinners or receptions, he invited only men andso, carefully, left her out. 

"One evening he had a dinner; a great many well-known people werepresent and a bishop was on his right hand, when, suddenly, between thecheese and the pear, as the French would say, Ellen came dancing intothe room in pink tights with a basket of roses around her waist withwhich she began pelting the guests. Watts was horrified, but everyoneelse delighted, the bishop in especial, it is said, declared he hadnever seen anything so romantically beautiful. Watts nearly had a fit, but Ellen danced out of the room with all their hearts in her basketinstead of her roses. 

"To me that's the true story of Ellen Terry's life. It may be true orfalse in reality, but I believe it to be true in fact as in symbol; itis not only an image of her life, but of her art. No one knows how shemet Irving or learned to act, though, as you know, she was one of thebest actresses that ever graced the English stage. A great personality. Her children even have inherited some of her talent. "

It was only famous actresses such as Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt andgreat ladies that Oscar ever praised. He was a snob by nature; indeedthis was the chief link between him and English society. Besides, he hada rooted contempt for women and especially for their brains. He saidonce, of some one: "he is like a woman, sure to remember the trivial andforget the important. "

It was this disdain of the sex which led him, later, to take up ourwhole dispute again. 

"I have been thinking over our argument in the train, " he began; "reallyit was preposterous of me to let you off with a drawn battle; you shouldhave been beaten and forced to haul down your flag. We talked of loveand I let you place the girl against the boy: it is all nonsense. A girlis not made for love; she is not even a good instrument of love. "

"Some of us care more for the person than the pleasure, " I replied, "andothers--. You remember Browning:

 Nearer we hold of God Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. "

"Yes, yes, " he replied impatiently, "but that's not the point. I meanthat a woman is not made for passion and love; but to be a mother. 

"When I married, my wife was a beautiful girl, white and slim as a lily, with dancing eyes and gay rippling laughter like music. In a year or sothe flower-like grace had all vanished; she became heavy, shapeless, deformed: she dragged herself about the house in uncouth misery withdrawn blotched face and hideous body, sick at heart because of our love. It was dreadful. I tried to be kind to her; forced myself to touch andkiss her; but she was sick always, and--oh! I cannot recall it, it isall loathsome. .. . I used to wash my mouth and open the window to cleansemy lips in the pure air. Oh, nature is disgusting; it takes beauty anddefiles it: it defaces the ivory-white body we have adored, with thevile cicatrices of maternity: it befouls the altar of the soul. 

"How can you talk of such intimacy as love? How can you idealise it?Love is not possible to the artist unless it is sterile. "

"All her suffering did not endear her to you?" I asked in amazement;"did not call forth that pity in you which you used to speak of asdivine?"

"Pity, Frank, " he exclaimed impatiently; "pity has nothing to do withlove. How can one desire what is shapeless, deformed, ugly? Desire iskilled by maternity; passion buried in conception, " and he flung awayfrom the table. 

At length I understood his dominant motive: _trahit sua quemquevoluptas_, his Greek love of form, his intolerant cult of physicalbeauty, could take no heed of the happiness or well-being of thebeloved. 

"I will not talk to you about it, Frank; I am like a Persian, who livesby warmth and worships the sun, talking to some Esquimau, who answers mewith praise of blubber and nights spent in ice houses and baths of foulvapour. Let's talk of something else. "

FOOTNOTES:

[27] He lived till November, 1910. 

CHAPTER XXIV

A little later I was called to Monte Carlo and went for a few days, leaving Oscar, as he said, perfectly happy, with good food, excellentchampagne, absinthe and coffee, and his simple fisher friends. 

When I came back to La Napoule, I found everything altered and alteredfor the worse. There was an Englishman of a good class named M----staying at the hotel. He was accompanied by a youth of seventeen oreighteen whom he called his servant. Oscar wanted to know if I mindedmeeting him. 

"He is charming, Frank, and well read, and he admires me very much: youwon't mind his dining with us, will you?"

"Of course not, " I replied. But when I saw M---- I thought him aninsignificant, foolish creature, who put to show a great admiration forOscar, and drank in his words with parted lips; and well he might, forhe had hardly any brains of his own. He had, however, a certain likingfor the poetry and literature of passion. [28]

To my astonishment Oscar was charming to him, chiefly I think becausehe was well off, and was pressing Oscar to spend the summer with him atsome place he had in Switzerland. This support made Oscar recalcitrantto any influence I might have had over him. When I asked him if he hadwritten anything whilst I was away, he replied casually:

"No, Frank, I don't think I shall be able to write any more. What is thegood of it? I cannot force myself to write. "

"And your 'Ballad of a Fisher Boy'?" I asked. 

"I have composed three or four verses of it, " he said, smiling at me, "Ihave got them in my head, " and he recited two or three, one of which wasquite good, but none of them startling. 

Not having seen him for some days, I noticed that he was growing stoutagain: the good living and constant drinking seemed to ooze out of him;he began to look as he looked in the old days in London just before thecatastrophe. 

One morning I asked him to put the verses on paper which he had recitedto me, but he would not; and when I pressed him, cried:

"Let me live, Frank; tasks remind me of prison. You do not know how Iabhor even the memory of it: it was degrading, inhuman!"

"Prison was the making of you, " I could not help retorting, irritated bywhat seemed to me a mere excuse. "You came out of it better in healthand stronger than I have ever known you. The hard living, regular hoursand compulsory chastity did you all the good in the world. That is whyyou wrote those superb letters to the 'Daily Chronicle, ' and the 'Balladof Reading Gaol'; the State ought really to put you in prison and keepyou there. "

For the first time in my life I saw angry dislike in his eyes. 

"You talk poisonous nonsense, Frank, " he retorted. "Bad food is bad foreveryone, and abstinence from tobacco is mere torture to me. Chastity isjust as unnatural and devilish as hunger; I hate both. Self-denial isthe shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity. "

To all this M---- giggled applause, which naturally excited thecombative instincts in me--always too alert. 

"All great artists, " I replied, "have had to practise chastity; it ischastity alone which gives vigour and tone to mind and body, whilebuilding up a reserve of extraordinary strength. Your favourite Greeksnever allowed an athlete to go into the palæstra unless he hadpreviously lived a life of complete chastity for a whole year. Balzac, too, practised it and extolled its virtues, and goodness knows he lovedall the mud-honey of Paris. "

"You are hopelessly wrong, Frank, what madness will you preach next! Youare always bothering one to write, and now forsooth you recommendchastity and 'skilly, ' though I admit, " he added laughing, "that your'skilly' includes all the indelicacies of the season, with champagne, Mocha coffee, and absinthe to boot. But surely you are getting toopuritanical. It's absurd of you; the other day you defended conventionallove against my ideal passion. "

He provoked me: his tone was that of rather contemptuous superiority. Ikept silent: I did not wish to retort as I might have done if M---- hadnot been present. 

But Oscar was determined to assert his peculiar view. One or two daysafterwards he came in very red and excited and more angry than I hadever seen him. 

"What do you think has happened, Frank?"

"I do not know. Nothing serious, I hope. "

"I was sitting by the roadside on the way to Cannes. I had taken out aVergil with me and had begun reading it. As I sat there reading, Ihappened to raise my eyes, and who should I see but GeorgeAlexander--George Alexander on a bicycle. I had known him intimately inthe old days, and naturally I got up delighted to see him, and wenttowards him. But he turned his head aside and pedalled past medeliberately. He meant to cut me. Of course I know that just before mytrial in London he took my name off the bill of my comedy, though hewent on playing it. But I was not angry with him for that, though hemight have behaved as well as Wyndham, [29] who owed me nothing, don'tyou think?

"Here there was nobody to see him, yet he cut me. What brutes men are!They not only punish me as a society, but now they are trying asindividuals to punish me, and after all I have not done worse than theydo. What difference is there between one form of sexual indulgence andanother? I hate hypocrisy and hypocrites! Think of Alexander, who madeall his money out of my works, cutting me, Alexander! It is too ignoble. Wouldn't you be angry, Frank?"

"I daresay I should be, " I replied coolly, hoping the incident would bea spur to him. 

"I've always wondered why you gave Alexander a play? Surely you didn'tthink him an actor?"

"No, no!" he exclaimed, a sudden smile lighting up his face; "Alexanderdoesn't act on the stage; he behaves. But wasn't it mean of him?"

I couldn't help smiling, the dart was so deserved. 

"Begin another play, " I said, "and the Alexanders will immediately go ontheir knees to you again. On the other hand, if you do nothing you mayexpect worse than discourtesy. Men love to condemn their neighbours' petvice. You ought to know the world by this time. "

He did not even notice the hint to work, but broke out angrily:

"What you call vice, Frank, is not vice: it is as good to me as it wasto Cæsar, Alexander, Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It was first of allmade a sin by monasticism, and it has been made a crime in recent times, by the Goths--the Germans and English--who have done little or nothingsince to refine or exalt the ideals of humanity. They all damn the sinsthey have no mind to, and that's their morality. A brutal race; theyovereat and overdrink and condemn the lusts of the flesh, whilerevelling in all the vilest sins of the spirit. If they would read the23rd chapter of St. Matthew and apply it to themselves, they would learnmore than by condemning a pleasure they don't understand. Why, evenBentham refused to put what you call a 'vice' in his penal code, and youyourself admitted that it should not be punished as a crime; for itcarries no temptation with it. It may be a malady; but, if so, itappears only to attack the highest natures. It is disgraceful to punishit. The wit of man can find no argument which justifies its punishment. "

"Don't be too sure of that, " I retorted. 

"I have never heard a convincing argument which condemns it, Frank; I donot believe such a reason exists. "

"Don't forget, " I said, "that this practice which you defend iscondemned by a hundred generations of the most civilised races ofmankind. "

"Mere prejudice of the unlettered, Frank. "

"And what is such a prejudice?" I asked. "It is the reason of a thousandgenerations of men, a reason so sanctified by secular experience that ithas passed into flesh and blood and become an emotion and is no longermerely an argument. I would rather have one such prejudice held by menof a dozen different races than a myriad reasons. Such a prejudice isincarnate reason approved by immemorial experience. 

"What argument have you against cannibalism; what reason is there why weshould not fatten babies for the spit and eat their flesh? The flesh issweeter, African travellers tell us, than any other meat, tenderer atonce and more sustaining; all reasons are in favour of it. What hindersus from indulging in this appetite but prejudice, sacred prejudice, aninstinctive loathing at the bare idea?

"Humanity, it seems to me, is toiling up a long slope leading from thebrute to the god: again and again whole generations, sometimes wholeraces, have fallen back and disappeared in the abyss. Every slip fillsthe survivors with fear and horror which with ages have becomeinstinctive, and now you appear and laugh at their fears and tell themthat human flesh is excellent food, and that sterile kisses are thenoblest form of passion. They shudder from you and hate and punish you, and if you persist they will kill you. Who shall say they are wrong? Whoshall sneer at their instinctive repulsion hallowed by ages ofsuccessful endeavour?"

"Fine rhetoric, I concede, " he replied, "but mere rhetoric. I neverheard such a defence of prejudice before. I should not have expected itfrom you. You admit you don't share the prejudice; you don't feel thehorror, the instinctive loathing you describe. Why? Because you areeducated, Frank, because you know that the passion Socrates felt was nota low passion, because you know that Cæsar's weakness, let us say, orthe weakness of Michelangelo or of Shakespeare, is not despicable. Ifthe desire is not a characteristic of the highest humanity, at least itis consistent with it. "[30]

"I cannot admit that, " I answered. "First of all, let us leaveShakespeare out of the question, or I should have to ask you for proofsof his guilt, and there are none. About the others there is this to besaid, it is not by imitating the vices and weaknesses of great men thatwe shall get to their level. And suppose we are fated to climb abovethem, then their weaknesses are to be dreaded. 

"I have not even tried to put the strongest reasons before you; I shouldhave thought your own mind would have supplied them; but surely you seethat the historical argument is against you. This vice of yours isdropping out of life, like cannibalism: it is no longer a practice ofthe highest races. It may have seemed natural enough to the Greeks, tous it is unnatural. Even the best Athenians condemned it; Socrates tookpride in never having yielded to it; all moderns denounce itdisdainfully. You must see that the whole progress of the world, thecurrent of educated opinion, is against you, that you are now a 'sport, 'a peculiarity, an abnormality, a man with six fingers: not a 'sport'that is, full of promise for the future, but a 'sport' of the dimbackward and abysm of time, an arrested development. "

"You are bitter, Frank, almost rude. "

"Forgive me, Oscar, forgive me, please; it is because I want you at longlast to open your eyes, and see things as they are. "

"But I thought you were with us, Frank, I thought at least you condemnedthe punishment, did not believe in the barbarous penalties. "

"I disbelieve in all punishment, " I said; "it is by love and not by hatethat men must be redeemed. I believe, too, that the time is already comewhen the better law might be put in force, and above all, I condemnpunishment which strikes a man, an artist like you, who has donebeautiful and charming things as if he had done nothing. At least thegood you have accomplished should be set against the evil. It has alwaysseemed monstrous to me that you should have been punished like a Taylor. The French were right in their treatment of Verlaine: they condemned thesin, while forgiving the sinner because of his genius. The rigour inEngland is mere puritanic hypocrisy, shortsightedness and racialself-esteem. "

"All I can say, Frank, is, I would not limit individual desire in anyway. What right has society to punish us unless it can prove we havehurt or injured someone else against his will? Besides, if you limitpassion you impoverish life, you weaken the mainspring of art, andnarrow the realm of beauty. "

"All societies, " I replied, "and most individuals, too, punish what theydislike, right or wrong. There are bad smells which do not injureanyone; yet the manufacturers of them would be indicted for committing anuisance. Nor does your plea that by limiting the choice of passion youimpoverish life, appeal to me. On the contrary, I think I could provethat passion, the desire of the man for the woman and the woman for theman, has been enormously strengthened in modern times. Christianity hascreated, or at least cultivated, modesty, and modesty has sharpeneddesire. Christianity has helped to lift woman to an equality with man, and this modern intellectual development has again intensified passionout of all knowledge. The woman who is not a slave but an equal, whogives herself according to her own feeling, is infinitely more desirableto a man than any submissive serf who is always waiting on his will. Andthis movement intensifying passion is every day gaining force. 

"We have a far higher love in us than the Greeks, infinitely higher andmore intense than the Romans knew; our sensuality is like a riverbanked in with stone parapets, the current flows higher and morevehemently in the narrower bed. "

"You may talk as you please, Frank, but you will never get me to believethat what I know is good to me, is evil. Suppose I like a food that ispoison to other people, and yet quickens me; how dare they punish me foreating of it?"

"They would say, " I replied, "that they only punish you for inducingothers to eat it. "

He broke in: "It is all ignorant prejudice, Frank; the world is slowlygrowing more tolerant and one day men will be ashamed of their barbaroustreatment of me, as they are now ashamed of the torturings of the MiddleAges. The current of opinion is making in our favour and not againstus. "

"You don't believe what you say, " I cried; "if you really thoughthumanity was going your way, you would have been delighted to playGalileo. Instead of writing a book in prison condemning your companionwho pushed you to discovery and disgrace, you would have written a bookvindicating your actions. 'I am a martyr, ' you would have cried, 'andnot a criminal, and everyone who holds the contrary is wrong. '

"You would have said to the jury:

"'In spite of your beliefs, and your cherished dogmas; in spite of yourreligion and prejudice and fanatical hatred of me, you are wrong and Iam right: the world does move. '

"But you didn't say that, and you don't think it. If you did you wouldbe glad you went into the Queensberry trial, glad you were accused, gladyou were imprisoned and punished because all these things must bringyour vindication more quickly; you are sorry for them all, because inyour heart you know you were wrong. This old world in the main is right:it's you who are wrong. "

"Of course everything can be argued, Frank; but I hold to my conviction:the best minds even now don't condemn us, and the world is becoming moretolerant. [31] I didn't justify myself in court because I was told Ishould be punished lightly if I respected the common prejudices, andwhen I tried to speak afterwards the judge would not let me. "

"And I believe, " I retorted, "that you were hopelessly beaten and couldnever have made a fight of it, because you felt the Time-spirit wasagainst you. How else was a silly, narrow judge able to wave you tosilence? Do you think he could have silenced me? Not all the judges inChristendom. Let me give you an example. I believe with Voltaire thatwhen modesty goes out of life it goes into the language as prudery. I amquite certain that our present habit of not discussing sexual questionsin our books is bound to disappear, and that free and dignified speechwill take the place of our present prurient mealy-mouthedness. I havelong thought it possible, probable even, in the present state of societyin England, where we are still more or less under the heel of theilliterate and prudish Philistinism of our middle class, that I might behad up to answer some charge of publishing an indecent book. The currentof the time appears to be against me. In the spacious days of Elizabeth, in the modish time of the Georges, a freedom of speech was habitualwhich to-day is tabooed. Our cases, therefore, are somewhat alike. Doyou think I should dread the issue or allow myself to be silenced by ajudge? I would set forth my defence before the judge and before the jurywith the assurance of victory in me! I should not minimise what I hadwritten; I should not try to explain it away; I should seek to make itstronger. I should justify every word, and finally I'd warn both judgeand jury that if they condemned and punished me they would only make myultimate triumph more conspicuous. 'All the great men of the past arewith me, ' I would cry; 'all the great minds of to-day in othercountries, and some of the best in England; condemn me at your peril:you will only condemn yourselves. You are spitting against the wind andthe shame will be on your own faces. '

"Do you believe I should be left to suffer? I doubt it even in Englandto-day. If I'm right, and I'm sure I'm right, then about me there wouldbe an invisible cloud of witnesses. You would see a strange movement ofopinion in my favour. The judge would probably lecture me and bind meover to come up for judgment; but if he sentenced me vindictively thenthe Home Secretary[32] would be petitioned and the movement in my favourwould grow, till it swept away opposition. This is the very soul of myfaith. If I did not believe with every fibre in me that this poor stupidworld is honestly groping its way up the altar stairs to God, and notdown, I would not live in it an hour. "

"Why do you argue against me, Frank? It is brutal of you. "

"To induce you even now to turn and pull yourself out of the mud. Youare forty odd years of age, and the keenest sensations of life are overfor you. Turn back whilst there's time, get to work, write your balladand your plays, and not the Alexanders alone, but all the people whoreally count, the best of all countries--the salt of the earth--willgive you another chance. Begin to work and you'll be borne up on allhands: No one sinks to the dregs but by his own weight. If you don'tbear fruit why should men care for you?"

He shrugged his shoulders and turned from me with disdainfulindifference. 

"I've done enough for their respect, Frank, and received nothing buthatred. Every man must dree his own weird. Thank Heaven, life's notwithout compensations. I'm sorry I cannot please you, " and he addedcarelessly, "M----has asked me to go and spend the summer with him atGland in Switzerland. _He_ does not mind whether I write or not. "

"I assure you, " I cried, "it is not my pleasure I am thinking about. What can it matter to me whether you write or not? It is your own good Iam thinking of. "

"Oh, bother good! One's friends like one as one is; the outside publichate one or scoff at one as they please. "

"Well, I hope I shall always be your friend, " I replied, "but you willyet be forced to see, Oscar, that everyone grows tired of holding up anempty sack. "

"Frank, you insult me. "

"I don't mean to; I'm sorry; I shall never be so brutally frank again;but you had to hear the truth for once. "

"Then, Frank, you only cared for me in so far as I agreed with you?"

"Oh, that's not fair, " I replied. "I have tried with all my strength toprevent you committing soul-suicide, but if you are resolved on it, Ican't prevent you. I must draw away. I can do no good. "

"Then you won't help me for the rest of the winter?"

"Of course I will, " I replied, "I shall do all I promised and more; butthere's a limit now, and till now the only limit was my power, not mywill. "

It was at Napoule a few days later that an incident occurred which gaveme to a certain extent a new sidelight on Oscar's nature by showing justwhat he thought of me. I make no scruple of setting forth his opinionhere in its entirety, though the confession took place after a futileevening when he had talked to M---- of great houses in England and thegreat people he had met there. The talk had evidently impressed M----as much as it had bored me. I must first say that Oscar's bedroom wasseparated from mine by a large sitting-room we had in common. As a ruleI worked in my bedroom in the mornings and he spent a great deal of timeout of doors. On this especial morning, however, I had gone into thesitting-room early to write some letters. I heard him get up and splashabout in his bath: shortly afterwards he must have gone into the nextroom, which was M----'s, for suddenly he began talking to him in a loudvoice from one room to the other, as if he were carrying on aconversation already begun, through the open door. 

"Of course it's absurd of Frank talking of social position or the greatpeople of English society at all. He never had any social position to becompared with mine!" (The petulant tone made me smile; but what Oscarsaid was true: nor did I ever pretend to have such a position. )

"He had a house in Park Lane and owned _The Saturday Review_ and had acertain power; but I was the centre of every party, the most honouredguest everywhere, at Clieveden and Taplow Court and Clumber. Thedifference was Frank was proud of meeting Balfour while Balfour wasproud of meeting me: d'ye see?" (I was so interested I was unconsciousof any indiscretion in listening: it made me smile to hear that I wasproud of meeting Arthur Balfour: it would never have occurred to me thatI should be proud of that: still no doubt Oscar was right in a generalway). 

"When Frank talks of literature, he amuses me: he pretends to bring newstandards into it; he does: he brings America to judge Oxford andLondon, much like bringing Macedon or Boeotia to judge Athens--quiteridiculous! What can Americans know about English literature?. .. 

"Yet the curious thing is he has read a lot and has a sort of vision:that Shakespeare stuff of his is extraordinary; but he takes sincerityfor style, and poetry as poetry has no appeal for him. You heard himadmit that himself last night. .. . 

"He's comic, really: curiously provincial like all Americans. Fancy aJeremiad preached by a man in a fur coat! Frank's comic. But he's reallykind and fights for his friends. He helped me in prison greatly:sympathy is a sort of religion to him: that's why we can meet withoutmurder and separate without suicide. .. . 

"Talking literature with him is very like playing Rugby football. .. . Inever did play football, you know; but talking literature with Frankmust be very like playing Rugby where you end by being kicked violentlythrough your own goal, " and he laughed delightedly. 

I had listened without thinking as I often listened to his talk for themere music of the utterance; now, at a break in the monologue, I wentinto the next room, feeling that to listen consciously would beunworthy. On the whole his view of me was not unkindly: he disliked tohear any opinion that differed from his own and it never came into hishead that Oxford was no nearer the meridian of truth than Lawrence, Kansas, and certainly at least as far from Heaven. 

Some weeks later I left La Napoule and went on a visit to some friends. He wrote complaining that without me the place was dull. I wired him andwent over to Nice to meet him and we lunched together at the Café de laRegence. He was terribly downcast, and yet rebellious. He had come overto stay at Nice, and stopped at the Hotel Terminus, a tenth-rate hotelnear the station; the proprietor called on him two or three daysafterwards and informed him he must leave the hotel, as his room hadbeen let. 

"Evidently someone has told him, Frank, who I am. What am I to do?"

I soon found him a better hotel where he was well treated, but theincident coming on top of the Alexander affair seemed to have frightenedhim. 

"There are too many English on this coast, " he said to me one day, "andthey are all brutal to me. I think I should like to go to Italy if youwould not mind. "

"The world is all before you, " I replied. "I shall only be too glad foryou to get a comfortable place, " and I gave him the money he wanted. Helingered on at Nice for nearly a week. I saw him several times. Helunched with me at the Reserve once at Beaulieu, and was full of delightat the beauty of the bay and the quiet of it. In the middle of the mealsome English people came in and showed their dislike of him rudely. Heat once shrank into himself, and as soon as possible made some pretextto leave. Of course I went with him. I was more than sorry for him, butI felt as unable to help him as I should have been unable to hold himback if he had determined to throw himself down a precipice. 

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross. "

[29] The incident is worth recording for the honour of human nature. Atthe moment of Oscar's trial Charles Wyndham had let his theatre, theCriterion, to Lewis Waller and H. H. Morell to produce in it "An IdealHusband" which had been running for over 100 nights at the Haymarket. When Alexander took Oscar's name off the bill, Wyndham wrote to theyoung Managers, saying that, if under the altered circumstances theywished to cancel their agreement, he would allow them to do so. But ifthey "put on" a play of Mr. Wilde's, the author's name must be on allthe bills and placards as usual. He could not allow his theatre to beused to insult a man who was on his trial. 

[30] Cfr. End of Appendix:--A Last Word. 

[31] Cfr. End of Appendix:--A Last Word. 

[32] This was written years before a Home Secretary, Mr. ReginaldMacKenna, tortured women and girls in prison in England by forciblefeeding, because they tried to present petitions in favour of Woman'sSuffrage. He afterwards defended himself in Parliament by declaring that"'forcible feeding' was not unpleasant. " The torturers of theInquisition also befouled cruelty with hypocritical falsehood: theywould burn their victims; but would not shed blood. 

CHAPTER XXV

 "The Gods are just and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us. "

It was full summer before I met Oscar again; he had come back to Parisand taken up his old quarters in the mean little hotel in the Rue desBeaux Arts. He lunched and dined with me as usual. His talk was ashumorous and charming as ever, and he was just as engaging a companion. For the first time, however, he complained of his health:

"I ate some mussels and oysters in Italy, and they must have poisonedme; for I have come out in great red blotches all over my arms and chestand back, and I don't feel well. "

"Have you consulted a doctor?"

"Oh, yes, but doctors are no good: they all advise you differently; thebest of it is they all listen to you with an air of intense interestwhen you are talking about yourself--which is an excellent tonic. "

"They sometimes tell one what's the matter; give a name and significanceto the unknown, " I interjected. 

"They bore me by forbidding me to smoke and drink. They are worse thanM----, who grudged me his wine. "

"What do you mean?" I asked in wonder. 

"A tragi-comic history, Frank. You were so right about M---- and I wasmistaken in him. You know he wanted me to stay with him at Gland inSwitzerland, begged me to come, said he would do everything for me. Whenthe weather got warm at Genoa I went to him. At first he seemed veryglad to see me and made me welcome. The food was not very good, thedrink anything but good, still I could not complain, and I put up withthe discomforts. But in a week or two the wine disappeared, and beertook its place, and I suggested I must be going. He begged me socordially not to go that I stayed on; but in a little while I noticedthat the beer got less and less in quantity, and one day when I venturedto ask for a second bottle at lunch he told me that it cost a great dealand that he could not afford it. Of course I made some decent pretextand left his house as soon as possible. If one has to suffer poverty, one had best suffer alone. But to get discomforts grudgingly and as acharity is the extremity of shame. I prefer to look on it from the otherside; M---- grudging me his small beer belongs to farce. "

He spoke with bitterness and contempt, as he used never to speak ofanyone. 

I could not help sympathising with him, though visibly the cloth waswearing threadbare. He asked me now at once for money, and a littlelater again and again. Formerly he had invented pretexts; he had notreceived his allowance when he expected it, or he was bothered by a billand so forth; but now he simply begged and begged, railing the while atfortune. It was distressing. He wanted money constantly, and spent it asalways like water, without a thought. 

I asked him one day whether he had seen much of his soldier boy since hehad returned to Paris. 

"I have seen him, Frank, but not often, " and he laughed gaily. "It's afarce-comedy; sentiment always begins romantically and ends inlaughter--_tabulae solvuntur risu_. I taught him so much, Frank, that hewas made a corporal and forthwith a nursemaid fell in love with hisstripes. He's devoted to her: I suppose he likes to play teacher in histurn. "

"And so the great romantic passion comes to this tame conclusion?"

"What would you, Frank? Whatever begins must also end. "

"Is there anyone else?" I asked, "or have you learned reason at last?"

"Of course there's always someone else, Frank: change is the essence ofpassion: the _reason_ you talk of is merely another name for impotence. "

"Montaigne declares, " I said, "that love belongs to early youth, 'thenext period after infancy, ' is his phrase, but that is at the best aFrenchman's view of it. Sophocles was nearer the truth when he calledhimself happy in that age had freed him from the whip of passion. Whenare you going to reach that serenity?"

"Never, Frank, never, I hope: life without desire would not be worthliving to me. As one gets older one is more difficult to please: but thesting of pleasure is even keener than in youth and far more egotistic. 

"One comes to understand the Marquis de Sade and that strange, scarletstory of de Retz--the pleasure they got from inflicting pain, thecurious, intense underworld of cruelty--"

"That's unlike you, Oscar, " I broke in. "I thought you shrank fromgiving pain always: to me it's the unforgivable sin. "

"To me, also, " he rejoined instantly, "intellectually one may understandit; but in reality it's horrible. I want my pleasure unembittered by anydrop of pain. That reminds me: I read a terrible, little book the otherday, Octave Mirbeau's 'Le Jardin des Supplices'; it is quite awful, a_sadique_ joy in pain pulses through it; but for all that it'swonderful. His soul seems to have wandered in fearsome places. You withyour contempt of fear, will face the book with courage--I--"

"I simply couldn't read it, " I replied; "it was revolting to me, impossible--"

"A sort of grey adder, " he summed up and I nodded in complete agreement. 

I passed the next winter on the Riviera. A speculation which I had gonein for there had caused me heavy loss and much anxiety. In the spring Ireturned to Paris, and of course, asked him to meet me. He was muchbrighter than he had been for a long time. Lord Alfred Douglas, itappeared, had come in for a large legacy from his father's estate andhad given him some money, and he was much more cheerful. We had a greatlunch at Durand's and he was at his very best. I asked him about hishealth. 

"I'm all right, Frank, but the rash continually comes back, a ghostlyvisitant, Frank: I'm afraid the doctors are in league with the devil. Itgenerally returns after a good dinner, a sort of aftermath of champagne. The doctors say I must not drink champagne, and must stop smoking, thesilly people, who regard pleasure as their natural enemies; whereas itis our pleasures which provide them with a living!"

He looked fairly well, I thought; he was a little fatter, his skin alittle dingier than of old, and he had grown very deaf, but in everyother way he seemed at his best, though he was certainly drinking toofreely--spirits between times as well as wine at meals. 

I had heard on the Riviera during the winter that Smithers had tried tobuy a play from him, so one day I brought up the subject. 

"By the way, Smithers says that you have been working on your play; youknow the one I mean, the one with the great screen scene in it. "

"Oh, yes, Frank, " he remarked indifferently. 

"Won't you tell me what you've done?" I asked. "Have you written any ofit?"

"No, Frank, " he replied casually, "it's the scenario Smithers talkedabout. "

A little while afterwards he asked me for money. I told him I could notafford any at the moment, and pressed him to write his play. 

"I shall never write again, Frank, " he said. "I can't, I simply can'tface my thoughts. Don't ask me!" Then suddenly: "Why don't you buy thescenario and write the play yourself?"

"I don't care for the stage, " I replied; "it's a sort of rude encausticwork I don't like; its effects are theatrical!"

"A play pays far better than a book, you know--"

But I was not interested. That evening thinking over what he had said, Irealised all at once that a story I had in mind to write would suit"the screen scene" of Oscar's scenario; why shouldn't I write a playinstead of a story? When we met next day I broached the idea to Oscar:

"I have a story in my head, " I said, "which would fit into that scenarioof yours, so far as you have sketched it to me. I could write it as aplay and do the second, third and fourth acts very quickly, as all thepersonages are alive to me. Could you do the first act?"

"Of course I could, Frank. "

"But, " I said, "will you?"

"What would be the good, you could not sell it, Frank. "

"In any case, " I went on, "I could try; but I would infinitely preferyou to write the whole play if you would; then it would sell fastenough. "

"Oh, Frank, don't ask me. "

The idea of the collaboration was a mistake; but it seemed to me at themoment the best way to get him to do something. Suddenly he asked me togive him £50 for the scenario at once, then I could do what I liked withit. 

After a good deal of talk I consented to give him the £50 if he wouldpromise to write the first act; he promised and I gave him themoney. [33]

A little later I noticed a certain tension in his relations with LordAlfred Douglas. One day he told me frankly that Lord Alfred Douglas hadcome into a fortune of £15, 000 or £20, 000, "and, " he added, "of coursehe's always able to get money. He'll marry an American millionairess orsome rich widow" (Oscar's ideas of life were nearly all conventional, derived from novels and plays); "and I wanted him to give me enough tomake my life comfortable, to settle enough on me to make a decent lifepossible to me. It would only have cost him two or three thousandpounds, perhaps less. I get £150 a year and I wanted him to make it upto £300. [34] I lost that through going to him at Naples. I think heought to give me that at the very least, don't you? Won't you speak tohim, Frank?"

"I could not possibly interfere, " I replied. 

"I gave him everything, " he went on, in a depressed way. "When I hadmoney, he never had to ask for it; all that was mine was his. And nowthat he is rich, I have to beg from him, and he gives me small sums andputs me off. It is terrible of him; it is really very, very wrong ofhim. "

I changed the subject as soon as I could; there was a note of bitternesswhich I did not like, which indeed I had already remarked in him. 

I was destined very soon to hear the other side. A day or two later LordAlfred Douglas told me that he had bought some racehorses and wastraining them at Chantilly; would I come down and see them?

"I am not much of a judge of racehorses, " I replied, "and I don't knowmuch about racing; but I should not mind coming down one evening. Icould spend the night at an hotel, and see the horses and your stable inthe morning. The life of the English stable lads in France must berather peculiar. "

"It is droll, " he said, "a complete English colony in France. There arepractically no French jockeys or trainers worth their salt; it is allEnglish, English slang, English ways, even English food and of courseEnglish drinks. No French boy seems to have nerve enough to make a goodrider. "

I made an arrangement with him and went down. I missed my train and wasvery late; I found that Lord Alfred Douglas had dined and gone out. Ihad my dinner, and about midnight went up to my room. Half an hour laterthere came a knocking at the door. I opened it and found Lord AlfredDouglas. 

"May I come in?" he asked. "I'm glad you've not gone to bed yet. "

"Of course, " I said, "what is it?" He was pale and seemedextraordinarily excited. 

"I have had such a row with Oscar, " he jerked out, nervously movingabout (I noticed the strained white face I had seen before at the CaféRoyal), "such a row, and I wanted to speak to you about it. Of courseyou know in the old days when his plays were being given in London hewas rich and gave me some money, and now he says I ought to settle alarge sum on him; I think it ridiculous, don't you?"

"I would rather not say anything about it, " I replied; "I don't knowenough about the circumstances. "

He was too filled with a sense of his own injuries; too excited to catchmy tone or understand any reproof in my attitude. 

"Oscar is really too dreadful, " he went on; "he is quite shameless now;he begs and begs and begs, and of course I have given him money, havegiven him hundreds, quite as much as he ever gave me: but he isinsatiable and recklessly extravagant besides. Of course I want to bequite fair to him: I've already given him back all he gave me. Don't youthink that is all anyone can ask of me?"

I looked at him in astonishment. 

"That is for you and Oscar, " I said, "to decide together. No one elsecan judge between you. "

"Why not?" he snapped out in his irritable way, "you know us both andour relations. "

"No, " I replied, "I don't know all the obligations and the interwovenservices. Besides, I could not judge fairly between you. "

He turned on me angrily, though I had spoken with as much kindness as Icould. 

"He seemed to want to make you judge between us, " he cried. "I don'tcare who's the judge. I think if you give a man back what he has givenyou, that is all he can ask. It's a d----d lot more than most people getin this world. "

After a pause he started off on a new line of thought:

"The first time I ever noticed any fault in Oscar was over that 'Salome'translation. He's appallingly conceited. You know I did the play intoEnglish. I found that his choice of words was poor, anything but good;his prose is wooden. .. . 

"Of course he's not a poet, " he broke off contemptuously, "even you mustadmit that. "

"I know what you mean, " I replied; "though I should have to make a vastreservation in favour of the man who wrote 'The Ballad of ReadingGaol. '"

"One ballad doesn't make a man a poet, " he barked; "I mean by poet oneto whom verse lends power: in that sense he's not a poet and I am. " Histone was that of defiant challenge. 

"You are certainly, " I replied. 

"Well, I did the translation of 'Salome' very carefully, as no one elsecould have done it, " and he flushed angrily, "and all the while Oscarkept on altering it for the worse. At last I had to tell him the truth, and we had a row. He imagines he's the greatest person in the world, andthe only person to be considered. His conceit is stupid. .. . I helped[35]him again and again with that 'Ballad of Reading Gaol' you're alwayspraising: I suppose he'd deny that now. 

"He's got his money back; what more can he want? He disgusts me when hebegs. "

I could not contain myself altogether. 

"He seems to blame you, " I said quietly, "for egging him on to thatinsane action against your father which brought him to ruin. "

"I've no doubt he'd find some reason to blame me, " he whipped out. "Howdid I know how the case would go?. .. Why did he take my advice, if hedidn't want to? He was surely old enough to know his own interest. .. . He's simply disgusting now; he's getting fat and bloated, and alwaysdemanding money, money, money, like a daughter of the horse-leech--justas if he had a claim to it. "

I could not stand it any longer; I had to try to move him to kindness. 

"Sometimes one gives willingly to a man one has never had anything from. Misery and want in one we like and admire have a very strong claim. "

"I do not see that there is any claim at all, " he cried bitterly, as ifthe very word maddened him, "and I am not going to pamper him any more. He could earn all the money he wants if he would only write; but hewon't do anything. He is lazy, and getting lazier and lazier every day;and he drinks far too much. He is intolerable. I thought when he keptasking me for that money to-night, he was like an old prostitute. "

"Good God!" I cried. "Good God! Has it come to that between you?"

"Yes, " he repeated, not heeding what I said, "he was just like an oldfat prostitute, " and he gloated over the word, "and I told him so. "

I looked at the man but could not speak; indeed there was nothing to besaid. Surely at last, I thought, Oscar Wilde has reached the lowestdepth. I could think of nothing but Oscar; this hard, small, bitternature made Oscar's suffering plain to me. 

"As I can do no good, " I said, "do you mind letting me sleep? I'm simplytired to death. "

"I'm sorry, " he said, looking for his hat; "will you come out in themorning and see the 'gees'?"

"I don't think so, " I replied, "I'm incapable of a resolution now, I'mso tired I would rather sleep. I think I'll go up to Paris in themorning. I have something rather urgent to do. "

He said "Good night" and went away. 

I lay awake, my eyes prickling with sorrow and sympathy for poor Oscar, insulted in his misery and destitution, outraged and trodden on by theman he had loved, by the man who had thrust him into the Pit. .. . [36]

I made up my mind to go to Oscar at once and try to comfort him alittle. After all, I thought, another fifty pounds or so wouldn't make agreat deal of difference to me, and I dwelt on the many delightful hoursI had passed with him, hours of gay talk and superb intellectualenjoyment. 

I went up by the morning train to Paris, and drove across the river toOscar's hotel. 

He had two rooms, a small sitting-room and a still smaller bedroomadjoining. He was lying half-dressed on the bed as I entered. The roomsaffected me unpleasantly. They were ordinary, mean little French rooms, furnished without taste; the usual mahogany chairs, gilt clock on themantelpiece and a preposterous bilious paper on the walls. What struckme was the disorder everywhere; books all over the round table; books onthe chairs; books on the floor and higgledy-piggledy, here a pair ofsocks, there a hat and cane, and on the floor his overcoat. The sense oforder and neatness which he used to have in his rooms at Tite Street wasutterly lacking. He was not living here, intent on making the best ofthings; he was merely existing without plan or purpose. 

I told him I wanted him to come to lunch. While he was finishingdressing it came to me that his clothes had undergone much the samechange as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a gooddeal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; wasparticular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Nowhe was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as hehad been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer tookpleasure in the vanities: it seemed to me a bad sign. 

I had always thought of him as very healthy, likely to live till sixtyor seventy; but he had no longer any hold on himself and that depressedme; some spring of life seemed broken in him. Bosie Douglas' secondbetrayal had been the _coup de grâce_. 

In the carriage he was preoccupied, out of sorts, and immediately beganto apologise. 

"I shall be poor company, Frank, " he warned me with quivering lips. 

The fragrant summer air in the Champs Elysées seemed to revive him alittle, but he was evidently lost in bitter reflections and scarcelynoticed where he was going. From time to time he sighed heavily as ifoppressed. I talked as well as I could of this and that, tried to lurehim away from the hateful subject that I knew must be in his mind; butall in vain. Towards the end of the lunch he said gravely:

"I want you to tell me something, Frank; I want you to tell me honestlyif you think I am in the wrong. I wish I could think I was. .. . You knowI spoke to you the other day about Bosie; he is rich now and he isthrowing his money away with both hands in racing. 

"I asked him to settle £1, 500 or £2, 000 on me to buy me an annuity, orto do something that would give me £150 a year. You said you did notcare to ask him, so I did. I told him it was really his duty to do it atonce, and he turned round and lashed me savagely with his tongue. Hecalled me dreadful names. Said dreadful things to me, Frank. I did notthink it was possible to suffer more than I suffered in prison, but hehas left me bleeding . .. " and the fine eyes filled with tears. Seeingthat I remained silent, he cried out:

"Frank, you must tell me for our friendship's sake. Is it my fault? Washe wrong or was I wrong?"

His weakness was pathetic, or was it that his affection was still sogreat that he wanted to blame himself rather than his friend?

"Of course he seems to me to be wrong, " I said, "utterly wrong. " I couldnot help saying it and I went on:

"But you know his temper is insane; if he even praises himself, as hedid to me lately, he gets into a rage in order to do it, and perhapsunwittingly you annoyed him by the way you asked. If you put it to hisgenerosity and vainglory you would get it easier than from his sense ofjustice and right. He has not much moral sense. "

"Oh, Frank, " he broke in earnestly, "I put it to him as well as I could, quite quietly and gently. I talked of our old affection, of the good andevil days we had passed together: you know I could never be harsh tohim, never. 

"There never was, " he burst out, in a sort of exaltation, "there neverwas in the world such a betrayal. Do you remember once telling me thatthe only flaw you could find in the perfect symbolism of the gospelstory was that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the foreigner from Kerioth, when he should have been betrayed by John, the beloved disciple; for itis only those we love who can betray us? Frank, how true, how tragicallytrue that is! It is those we love who betray us with a kiss. "

He was silent for some time and then went on wearily, "I wish you wouldspeak to him, Frank, and show him how unjust and unkind he is to me. "

"I cannot possibly do that, Oscar, " I said, "I do not know all therelations between you and the myriad bands that unite you: I should onlydo harm and not good. "

"Frank, " he cried, "you do know, you must know that he is responsiblefor everything, for my downfall and my ruin. It was he who drove me tofight with his father. I begged him not to, but he whipped me to it;asked me what his father could do; pointed out to me contemptuously thathe could prove nothing; said he was the most loathsome, hateful creaturein the world, and that it was my duty to stop him, and that if I didnot, everyone would be laughing at me, and he could never care for acoward. All his family, his brother and his mother, too, begged me toattack Queensberry, all promised me their support and afterwards--

"You know, Frank, in the Café Royal before the trial how Bosie spoke toyou, when you warned me and implored me to drop the insane suit and goabroad; how angry he got. You were not a friend of mine, he said. Youknow he drove me to ruin in order to revenge himself on his father, andthen left me to suffer. 

"And that's not the worst of it, Frank: I came out of prison determinednot to see him any more. I promised my poor wife I would not see himagain. I had forgiven him; but I did not want to see him. I had sufferedtoo much by him and through him, far too much. And then he wrote andwrote of his love, crying it to me every hour, begging me to come, telling me he only wanted me, in order to be happy, me in the wholeworld. How could I help believing him, how could I keep away from him?At last I yielded and went to him, and as soon as the difficulties beganhe turned on me in Naples like a wild beast, blaming me and insultingme. 

"I had to fly to Paris, having lost everything through him--wife andincome and self-respect, everything; but I always thought that he was atleast generous as a man of his name should be: I had no idea he could bestingy and mean; but now he is comparatively rich, he prefers tosquander his money on jockeys and trainers and horses, of which he knowsnothing, instead of lifting me out of my misery. Surely it is not toomuch to ask him to give me a tenth when I gave him all? Won't you askhim?"

"I think he ought to have done what you want, without asking, " Iadmitted, "but I am certain my speaking would not do any good. He showsme hatred already whenever I do not agree with him. Hate is nearer tohim always than sympathy: he is his father's son, Oscar, and I can donothing. I cannot even speak to him about it. "

"Oh, Frank, you ought to, " said Oscar. 

"But suppose he retorted and said you led him astray, what could Ianswer?"

"Led him astray!" cried Oscar, starting up, "you cannot believe that. You know better than that. It is not true. It is he who always led, always dominated me; he is as imperious as a Cæsar. It was he who beganour intimacy: he who came to me in London when I did not want to seehim, or rather, Frank, I wanted to but I was afraid; at the verybeginning I was afraid of what it would all lead to, and I avoided him;the desperate aristocratic pride in him, the dreadful bold, imperioustemper in him terrified me. But he came to London and sent for me tocome to him, said he would come to my house if I didn't. I went, thinking I could reason with him; but it was impossible. When I told himwe must be very careful, for I was afraid of what might happen, he madefun of my fears, and encouraged me. He knew that they'd never dare topunish him; he's allied to half the peerage and he did not care whatbecame of me. .. . 

"He led me first to the street, introduced me to the male prostitutionin London. From the beginning to the end he has driven me like theOestrum of which the Greeks wrote, which drove the ill-fated todisaster. 

"And now he says he owes me nothing; I have no _claim_, I who gave tohim without counting; he says he needs all his money for himself: hewants to win races and to write poetry, Frank, the pretty verses whichhe thinks poetry. 

"He has ruined me, soul and body, and now he puts himself in the balanceagainst me and declares he outweighs me. Yes, Frank, he does; he told methe other day I was not a poet, not a true poet, and he was, AlfredDouglas greater than Oscar Wilde. 

"I have not done much in the world, " he went on hotly, "I know it betterthan anyone, not a quarter of what I should have done, but there aresome things I have done which the world will not forget, can hardlyforget. If all the tribe of Douglas from the beginning and all theirachievements were added together and thrown into the balance, they wouldnot weigh as dust in comparison. Yet he reviled me, Frank, whipped me, shamed me. .. . He has broken me, he has broken me, the man I loved; myvery heart is a cold weight in me, " . .. And he got up and moved asidewith the tears pouring down his cheeks. 

"Don't take it so much to heart, " I said in a minute or two, going afterhim, "the loss of affection I cannot help, but a hundred or so a year isnot much; I will see that you get that every year. "

"Oh, Frank, it is not the money; it is his denial, his insults, his hatethat kills me; the fact that I have ruined myself for someone who caresnothing; who puts a little money before me; it is as if I were chokedwith mud. .. . 

"Once I thought myself master of my life; lord of my fate, who could dowhat I pleased and would always succeed. I was as a crowned king till Imet him, and now I am an exile and outcast and despised. 

"I have lost my way in life; the passers-by all scorn me and the manwhom I loved whips me with foul insults and contempt. There is noexample in history of such a betrayal, no parallel. I am finished. It isall over with me now--all! I hope the end will come quickly, " and hemoved away to the window, his tears falling heavily. 

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The rest of this story concerns me chiefly and I have thereforerelegated it to the Appendix for those who care to read it. 

[34] Oscar was already getting £300 a year from his wife and RobertRoss, to say nothing of the hundreds given to him from time to time byother friends. 

[35] The truth about this I have already stated. 

[36] Though I have reported this conversation as faithfully as I can andhave indeed softened the impression Lord Alfred Douglas made upon me atthe time; still I am conscious that I may be doing him some injustice. Ihave never really been in sympathy with him and it may well be that inreporting him here faithfully I am showing him at his worst. I am awarethat the incident does not reveal him at his best. He has proved sincein his writings and notably in some superb sonnets that he had a realaffection and admiration for Oscar Wilde. If I have been in any degreeunfair to him I can best correct it, I think, by reproducing here thenoble sonnet he wrote on Oscar after his death: in sheer beauty andsincerity of feeling it ranks with Shelley's lament for Keats:

_The Dead Poet_[37]

 I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face All radiant and unshadowedof distress, And as of old, in music measureless, I heard his goldenvoice and marked him trace Under the common thing the hidden grace, Andconjure wonder out of emptiness, Till mean things put on beauty like adress And all the world was an enchanted place. 

 And then methought outside a fast locked gate I mourned the loss ofunrecorded words, Forgotten tales and mysteries half said Wonders thatmight have been articulate, And voiceless thoughts like murdered singingbirds And so I woke and knew that he was dead. 

[37] In the Appendix I have published the first sketch of this finesonnet: lovers of poetry will like to compare them. 

CHAPTER XXVI

In a day or two, however, the clouds lifted and the sun shone asbrilliantly as ever. Oscar's spirits could not be depressed for long: hetook a child's joy in living and in every incident of life. When I lefthim in Paris a week or so later, in midsummer, he was full of gaiety andhumour, talking as delightfully as ever with a touch of cynicism thatadded piquancy to his wit. Shortly after I arrived in London he wrotesaying he was ill, and that I really ought to send him some money. I hadalready paid him more than the amount we had agreed upon at first forhis scenario, and I was hard up and anything but well. I had chronicbronchitis which prostrated me time and again that autumn. Having heardfrom mutual friends that Oscar's illness did not hinder him from diningout and enjoying himself, I received his plaints and requests with acertain impatience, and replied to him curtly. His illness appeared tome to be merely a pretext. When my play was accepted his demands becameas insistent as they were extravagant. 

Finally I went back to Paris in September to see him, persuaded that Icould settle everything amicably in five minutes' talk: he must rememberour agreement. 

I found him well in health, but childishly annoyed that my play wasgoing to be produced and resolved to get all the money he could from meby hook or by crook. I never met such persistence in demands. I couldonly settle with him decently by paying him a further sum, which I did. 

In the course of this bargaining and begging I realised that contrary tomy previous opinion he was not gifted as a friend, and did not attributeany importance to friendship. His affection for Bosie Douglas even hadgiven place to hatred: indeed his liking for him had never been foundedon understanding or admiration; it was almost wholly snobbish: he lovedthe title, the romantic name--Lord Alfred Douglas. Robert Ross was theonly friend of whom he always spoke with liking and appreciation: "Oneof the wittiest of men, " he used to call him and would jest at hishandwriting, which was peculiarly bad, but always good-naturedly; "aletter merely shows that Bobbie has something to conceal"; but he wouldadd, "how kind he is, how good, " as if Ross's devotion surprised him, asin fact it did. Ross has since told me that Oscar never cared much forhim. Indeed Oscar cared so little for anyone that an unselfish affectionastonished him beyond measure: he could find in himself no explanationof it. His vanity was always more active than his gratitude, as indeedit is with most of us. Now and then when Ross played mentor or took himto task, he became prickly at once and would retort: "Really, Bobbie, you ride the high horse so well, and so willingly, it seems a pity thatyou never tried Pegasus"--not a sneer exactly, but a rap on the knucklesto call his monitor to order. Like most men of charming manners, Oscarwas selfish and self-centred, too convinced of his own importance tospend much thought on others; yet generous to the needy and kind to all. 

After my return to London he kept on begging for money by almost everypost. As soon as my play was advertised I found myself dunned andpersecuted by a horde of people who declared that Oscar had sold themthe scenario he afterwards sold to me. [38] Several of them threatened toget injunctions to prevent me staging my play, "Mr. And Mrs. Daventry, "if I did not first settle with them. Naturally, I wrote rather sharplyto Oscar for having led me into this hornets' nest. 

It was in the midst of all this unpleasantness that I heard from Turner, in October, I believe, that Oscar was seriously ill, and that if I owedhim money, as he asserted, it would be a kindness to send it, as he wasin great need. The letter found me in bed. I could not say now whether Ianswered it or not: it made me impatient; his friends must have knownthat I owed Oscar nothing; but later I received a telegram from Rosssaying that Oscar was not expected to live. I was ill and unable tomove, or I should have gone at once to Paris. As it was I sent for myfriend, Bell, gave him some money and a cheque, and begged him to goacross and let me know if Oscar were really in danger, which I couldhardly believe. As luck would have it, the next afternoon, when I hopedBell had started, his wife came to tell me that he had had a severeasthmatic attack, but would cross as soon as he dared. 

I was too hard up myself to wire money that might not be needed, andOscar had cried "wolf" about his health too often to be a crediblewitness. Yet I was dissatisfied with myself and anxious for Bell tostart. 

Day after day passed in troubled doubts and fears; but it was not longwhen a period was put to all my anxiety. A telegram came telling me hewas dead. I could hardly believe my eyes: it seemed incredible--thefount of joy and gaiety; the delightful source of intellectual vivacityand interest stilled forever. The world went greyer to me because ofOscar Wilde's death. 

Months afterwards Robert Ross gave me the particulars of his lastillness. 

Ross went to Paris in October: as soon as he saw Oscar, he was shockedby the change in his appearance: he insisted on taking him to a doctor;but to his surprise the doctor saw no ground for immediate alarm: ifOscar would only stop drinking wine and _a fortiori_ spirits, he mightlive for years: absinthe was absolutely forbidden. But Oscar paid noheed to the warning and Ross could only take him for drives whenever theweather permitted and seek to amuse him harmlessly. 

The will to live had almost left Oscar: so long as he could livepleasantly and without effort he was content; but as soon as ill-healthcame, or pain, or even discomfort, he grew impatient for deliverance. 

But to the last he kept his joyous humour and charming gaiety. Hisdisease brought with it a certain irritation of the skin, annoyingrather than painful. Meeting Ross one morning after a day's separationhe apologised for scratching himself:

"Really, " he exclaimed, "I'm more like a great ape than ever; but I hopeyou'll give me a lunch, Bobbie, and not a nut. "

On one of the last drives with this friend he asked for champagne andwhen it was brought declared that he was dying as he had lived, "beyondhis means"--his happy humour lighting up even his last hours. 

Early in November Ross left Paris to go down to the Riviera with hismother: for Reggie Turner had undertaken to stay with Oscar. ReggieTurner describes how he grew gradually feebler and feebler, though tothe end flashes of the old humour would astonish his attendants. Hepersisted in saying that Reggie, with his perpetual prohibitions, wasqualifying for a doctor. "When you can refuse bread to the hungry, Reggie, " he would say, "and drink to the thirsty, you can apply for yourdiploma. "

Towards the end of November Reggie wired for Ross and Ross lefteverything and reached Paris next day. 

When all was over he wrote to a friend giving him a very completeaccount of the last hours of Oscar Wilde; that account he generouslyallows me to reproduce and it will be found word for word in theAppendix; it is too long and too detailed to be used here. 

Ross's letter should be read by the student; but several touches in itare too timid; certain experiences that should be put in high relief areslurred over: in conversation with me he told more and told it better. 

For example, when talking of his drives with Oscar, he mentionscasually that Oscar "insisted on drinking absinthe, " and leaves it atthat. The truth is that Oscar stopped the victoria at almost the firstcafé, got down and had an absinthe. Two or three hundred yards furtheron, he stopped the carriage again to have another absinthe: at the nextstoppage a few minutes later Ross ventured to remonstrate:

"You'll kill yourself, Oscar, " he cried, "you know the doctors saidabsinthe was poison to you!"

Oscar stopped on the sidewalk:

"And what have I to live for, Bobbie?" he asked gravely. And Rosslooking at him and noting the wreck--the symptoms of old age and brokenhealth--could only bow his head and walk on with him in silence. Whatindeed had he to live for who had abandoned all the fair uses of life?

The second scene is horrible: but is, so to speak, the inevitableresultant of the first, and has its own awful moral. Ross tells how hecame one morning to Oscar's death-bed and found him practicallyinsensible: he describes the dreadful loud death-rattle of his breath, and says: "terrible offices had to be carried out. "

The truth is still more appalling. Oscar had eaten too much and drunktoo much almost habitually ever since the catastrophe in Naples. Thedreadful disease from which he was suffering, or from the after effectsof which he was suffering, weakens all the tissues of the body, and thisweakness is aggravated by drinking wine and still more by drinkingspirits. Suddenly, as the two friends sat by the bedside in sorrowfulanxiety, there was a loud explosion: mucus poured out of Oscar's mouthand nose, and--

Even the bedding had to be burned. 

If it is true that all those who draw the sword shall perish by thesword, it is no less certain that all those who live for the body shallperish by the body, and there is no death more degrading. 

 * * * * *

One more scene, and this the last, and I shall have done. 

When Robert Ross was arranging to bury Oscar at Bagneux he had alreadymade up his mind as soon as he could to transfer his body to PèreLachaise and erect over his remains some worthy memorial. It became thepurpose of his life to pay his friend's debts, annul his bankruptcy, andpublish his books in suitable manner; in fine to clear Oscar's memoryfrom obloquy while leaving to his lovable spirit the shining raiment ofimmortality. In a few years he had accomplished all but one part of hishigh task. He had not only paid off all Oscar Wilde's debts; but he hadmanaged to remit thousands of pounds yearly to his children, and hadestablished his popularity on the widest and surest foundation. 

He crossed to Paris with Oscar's son, Vyvyan, to render the last serviceto his friend. When preparing the body for the grave years before Rosshad taken medical advice as to what should be done to make his purposepossible. The doctors told him to put Wilde's body in quicklime, likethe body of the man in "The Ballad of Reading Gaol. " The quicklime, theysaid, would consume the flesh and leave the white bones--theskeleton--intact, which could then be moved easily. 

To his horror, when the grave was opened, Ross found that the quicklime, instead of destroying the flesh, had preserved it. Oscar's face wasrecognisable, only his hair and beard had grown long. At once Ross sentthe son away, and when the sextons were about to use their shovels, heordered them to desist, and descending into the grave, moved the bodywith his own hands into the new coffin in loving reverence. 

Those who hold our mortal vesture in respect for the sake of the spiritwill know how to thank Robert Ross for the supreme devotion he showed tohis friend's remains: in his case at least love was stronger thandeath. 

One can be sure, too, that the man who won such fervid self-denyingtenderness, had deserved it, called it forth by charm of companionship, or magic of loving intercourse. 

FOOTNOTES:

[38] See Appendix: p. 589 and especially p. 592. 

CHAPTER XXVII

It was the inhumanity of the prison doctor and the English prison systemthat killed Oscar Wilde. The sore place in his ear caused by the fallwhen he fainted that Sunday morning in Wandsworth Prison chapel formedinto an abscess and was the final cause of his death. The "operation"Ross speaks of in his letter was the excision of this tumour. Theimprisonment and starvation, and above all the cruelty of his gaolers, had done their work. 

The local malady was inflamed, as I have already said, by a more generaland more terrible disease. The doctors attributed the red flush Oscarcomplained of on his chest and back, which he declared was due to eatingmussels, to another and graver cause. They warned him at once to stopdrinking and smoking and to live with the greatest abstemiousness, forthey recognised in him the tertiary symptoms of that dreadful diseasewhich the brainless prudery in England allows to decimate the flower ofEnglish manhood unchecked. 

Oscar took no heed of their advice. He had little to live for. Thepleasures of eating and drinking in good company were almost the onlypleasures left to him. Why should he deny himself the immediateenjoyment for a very vague and questionable future benefit?

He never believed in any form of asceticism or self-denial, and towardsthe end, feeling that life had nothing more to offer him, the paganspirit in him refused to prolong an existence that was no longer joyous. "I have lived, " he would have said with profound truth. 

Much has been made of the fact that Oscar was buried in anout-of-the-way cemetery at Bagneux under depressing circumstances. Itrained the day of the funeral, it appears, and a cold wind blew: the waywas muddy and long, and only a half-a-dozen friends accompanied thecoffin to its resting-place. But after all, such accidents, depressingas they are at the moment, are unimportant. The dead clay knows nothingof our feelings, and whether it is borne to the grave in pompousprocession and laid to rest in a great abbey amid the mourning of anation or tossed as dust to the wind, is a matter of utter indifference. 

Heine's verse holds the supreme consolation:

 Immerhin mich wird umgeben Gotteshimmel dort wie hier Und wie Todtenlampen schweben Nachts die Sterne ueber mir. 

Oscar Wilde's work was over, his gift to the world completed yearsbefore. Even the friends who loved him and delighted in the charm of histalk, in his light-hearted gaiety and humour, would scarcely have kepthim longer in the pillory, exposed to the loathing and contempt of thisall-hating world. 

The good he did lives after him, and is immortal, the evil is buried inhis grave. Who would deny to-day that he was a quickening and liberatinginfluence? If his life was given overmuch to self-indulgence, it must beremembered that his writings and conversation were singularly kindly, singularly amiable, singularly pure. No harsh or coarse or bitter wordever passed those eloquent laughing lips. If he served beauty in hermyriad forms, he only showed in his works the beauty that was amiableand of good report. If only half-a-dozen men mourned for him, theirsorrow was unaffected and intense, and perhaps the greatest of men havenot found in their lifetime even half-a-dozen devoted admirers andlovers. It is well with our friend, we say: at any rate, he was notforced to drink the bitter lees of a suffering and dishonourable oldage: Death was merciful to him. 

My task is finished. I don't think anyone will doubt that I have doneit in a reverent spirit, telling the truth as I see it, from thebeginning to the end, and hiding or omitting as little as might be ofwhat ought to be told. Yet when I come to the parting I am painfullyconscious that I have not done Oscar Wilde justice; that some fault orother in me has led me to dwell too much on his faults and failings andgrudged praise to his soul-subduing charm and the incomparable sweetnessand gaiety of his nature. 

Let me now make amends. When to the sessions of sad memory I summon upthe spirits of those whom I have met in the world and loved, men famousand men of unfulfilled renown, I miss no one so much as I miss OscarWilde. I would rather spend an evening with him than with Renan orCarlyle, or Verlaine or Dick Burton or Davidson. I would rather have himback now than almost anyone I have ever met. I have known more heroicsouls and some deeper souls; souls much more keenly alive to ideas ofduty and generosity; but I have known no more charming, no morequickening, no more delightful spirit. 

This may be my shortcoming; it may be that I prize humour andgood-humour and eloquent or poetic speech, the artist qualities, morethan goodness or loyalty or manliness, and so over-estimate thingsamiable. But the lovable and joyous things are to me the pricelessthings, and the most charming man I have ever met was assuredly OscarWilde. I do not believe that in all the realms of death there is a morefascinating or delightful companion. 

One last word on Oscar Wilde's place in English literature. In thecourse of this narrative I have indicated sufficiently, I think, thevalue and importance of his work; he will live with Congreve and withSheridan as the wittiest and most humorous of all our playwrights. "TheImportance of Being Earnest" has its own place among the best of Englishcomedies. But Oscar Wilde has done better work than Congreve orSheridan: he is a master not only of the smiles, but of the tears ofmen. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is the best ballad in English; it ismore, it is the noblest utterance that has yet reached us from a modernprison, the only high utterance indeed that has ever come from thatunderworld of man's hatred and man's inhumanity. In it, and by thespirit of Jesus which breathes through it, Oscar Wilde has done much, not only to reform English prisons, but to abolish them altogether, forthey are as degrading to the intelligence as they are harmful to thesoul. What gaoler and what gaol could do anything but evil to theauthor of such a verse as this:

 This too I know--and wise it were If each could know the same-- That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars, lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim. 

Indeed, is it not clear that the man who, in his own wretchedness, wrotethat letter to the warder which I have reproduced, and was eager tobring about the freeing of the little children at his own cost, is farabove the judge who condemned him or the society which sanctions suchpunishments? "The Ballad of Reading Gaol, " I repeat, and some pages of"De Profundis, " and, above all, the tragic fate of which these were theoutcome, render Oscar Wilde more interesting to men than any of hispeers. 

He has been indeed well served by the malice and cruelty of his enemies;in this sense his word in "De Profundis" that he stood in symbolicrelation to the art and life of his time is justified. 

The English drove Byron and Shelley and Keats into exile and allowedChatterton, Davidson and Middleton to die of misery and destitution; butthey treated none of their artists and seers with the malevolent crueltythey showed to Oscar Wilde. His fate in England is symbolic of the fateof all artists; in some degree they will all be punished as he waspunished by a grossly materialised people who prefer to go in blinkersand accept idiotic conventions because they distrust the intellect andhave no taste for mental virtues. 

All English artists will be judged by their inferiors and condemned, asDante's master was condemned, for their good deeds (_per tuo ben far_):for it must not be thought that Oscar Wilde was punished solely or evenchiefly for the evil he wrought: he was punished for his popularity andhis preëminence, for the superiority of his mind and wit; he waspunished by the envy of journalists, and by the malignant pedantry ofhalf-civilised judges. Envy in his case overleaped itself: the hate ofhis justicers was so diabolic that they have given him to the pity ofmankind forever; they it is who have made him eternally interesting tohumanity, a tragic figure of imperishable renown. 

THE END. 

APPENDIX

Here are the two poems of Lord Alfred Douglas which were read out inCourt, on account of which the prosecution sought to incriminate OscarWilde. My readers can judge for themselves the value of any inference tobe drawn from such work by another hand. To me, I must confess, thepoems themselves seem harmless and pretty--I had almost said, academicand unimportant. 

TWO LOVES

TO "THE SPHINX"

 Two loves I have of comfort and despair That like two spirits do suggest me still, My better angel is a man right fair, My worse a woman tempting me to ill. --_Shakespeare_. 

 I dreamed I stood upon a little hill, And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed Like a waste garden, flowering at its will With flowers and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed Black and unruffled; there were white lilies A few, and crocuses, and violets Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets Blue eyes of shy pervenche winked in the sun. And there were curious flowers, before unknown, Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades Of Nature's wilful moods; and here a one That had drunk in the transitory tone Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades Of grass that in an hundred springs had been Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars, And watered with the scented dew long cupped In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars The luminous air of heaven. Beyond, abrupt, A gray stone wall, o'ergrown with velvet moss Uprose. And gazing I stood long, all mazed To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair. And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across The garden came a youth, one hand he raised To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes Were clear as crystal, naked all was he, White as the snow on pathless mountains frore, Red were his lips as red wine-spilth that dyes A marble floor, his brow chalcedony. And he came near me, with his lips uncurled And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth, And gave me grapes to eat, and said, "Sweet friend, Come, I will show thee shadows of the world And images of life. See, from the south Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end. " And lo! within the garden of my dream I saw two walking on a shining plain Of golden light. The one did joyous seem And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy; His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy. And in his hands he held an ivory lute, With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were. But he that was his comrade walked aside; He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame: which when I did behold I fell a-weeping and I cried, "Sweet youth Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth What is thy name?" He said, "My name is Love. " Then straight the first did turn himself to me And cried, "He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame. " Then sighing said the other, "Have thy will, I am the Love that dare not speak its name. "

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS. 

September, 1892. 

IN PRAISE OF SHAME

 Unto my bed last night, methought there came Our lady of strange dreams, and from an urn She poured live fire, so that mine eyes did burn At sight of it. Anon the floating flame Took many shapes, and one cried, "I am Shame That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern And see my loveliness, and praise my name. "

 And afterward, in radiant garments dressed, With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips, A pomp of all the passions passed along, All the night through; till the white phantom ships Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song, "Of all sweet passions Shame is loveliest. "

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS. 

THE UNPUBLISHED PORTION OF "DE PROFUNDIS"

This is not the whole of the unpublished portion of "De Profundis"; butthat part only which was read out in Court and used for the purpose ofdiscrediting Lord Alfred Douglas; still, it is more than half of thewhole in length and absolutely more than the whole in importance:nothing of any moment is omitted, except the reiteration of accusationsand just this repetition weakens the effect of the argument andstrengthens the impression of querulous nagging instead of dispassionatestatement. If the whole were printed Oscar Wilde would stand worse;somewhat more selfish and more vindictive. 

I have commented the document as it stands mainly for the sake ofclearness and because it justifies in every particular and almost inevery epithet the shadows of the portrait which I have endeavoured topaint in this book. Curiously enough Oscar Wilde depicts himselfunconsciously in this part of "De Profundis" in a more unfavourablelight than that accorded him in my memory. I believe mine is the morefaithful portrait of him, but that is for my readers to determine. 

FRANK HARRIS. 

NEW YORK, December, 1915. 

H. M. Prison, Reading. 

DEAR BOSIE, After long and fruitless waiting I have determined to write to youmyself, as much for your sake as for mine, as I would not like to thinkthat I had passed through two long years of imprisonment without everhaving received a single line from you, or any news or message even, except such as gave me pain. 

Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin andpublic infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is oftenwith me, and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt shouldfor ever take the place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me;and you yourself will, I think, feel in your heart that to write to meas I lie in the loneliness of prison life is better than to publish myletters without my permission, or to dedicate poems to me unasked, though the world will know nothing of whatever words of grief orpassion, of remorse or indifference, you may choose to send as youranswer or your appeal. 

I have no doubt that in this letter which I have to write of your lifeand mine, of the past and of the future, of sweet things changed tobitterness and of bitter things that may be turned to joy, there will bemuch that will wound your vanity to the quick. If it prove so, read theletter over and over again till it kills your vanity. If you find in itsomething of which you feel that you are unjustly accused, remember thatone should be thankful that there is any fault of which one can beunjustly accused. If there be in it one single passage that brings tearsto your eyes, weep as we weep in prison, where the day no less than thenight is set apart for tears. It is the only thing that can save you. Ifyou go complaining to your mother, as you did with reference to thescorn of you I displayed in my letter to Robbie, so that she may flatterand soothe you back into self-complacency or conceit, you will becompletely lost. If you find one false excuse for yourself you will soonfind a hundred, and be just what you were before. Do you still say, asyou said to Robbie in your answer, that I "attribute unworthy motives"to you? Ah! you had no motives in life. You had appetites merely. Amotive is an intellectual aim. That you were "very young" when ourfriendship began? Your defect was not that you knew so little aboutlife, but that you knew so much. The morning dawn of boyhood with itsdelicate bloom, its clear pure light, its joy of innocence andexpectation, you had left far behind you. With very swift and runningfeet you had passed from Romance to Realism. The gutter and the thingsthat live in it had begun to fascinate you. That was the origin of thetrouble[39] in which you sought my aid, and I, unwisely, according tothe wisdom of this world, out of pity and kindness, gave it to you. Youmust read this letter right through, though each word may become to youas the fire or knife of the surgeon that makes the delicate flesh burnor bleed. Remember that the fool to the eyes of the gods and the fool tothe eyes of man are very different. One who is entirely ignorant[40] ofthe modes of Art in its revelation or the moods of thought in itsprogress, of the pomp of the Latin line or the richer music of thevowelled Greek, of Tuscan sculpture or Elizabethan song, may yet be fullof the very sweetest wisdom. The real fool, such as the gods mock ormar, is he who does not know himself. I was such a one too long. Youhave been such a one too long. Be so no more. Do not be afraid. Thesupreme vice is shallowness. Everything that is realised is right. Remember also that whatever is misery to you to read, is still greatermisery to me to set down. They have permitted you to see the strange andtragic shapes of life as one sees shadows in a crystal. The head ofMedusa that turns living men to stone, you have been allowed to look atin a mirror merely. You yourself have walked free among the flowers. From me the beautiful world of colour and motion has been taken away. 

I will begin by telling you that I blame myself terribly. As I sit inthis dark cell in convict clothes, a disgraced and ruined man, I blamemyself. In the perturbed and fitful nights of anguish, in the longmonotonous days of pain, it is myself I blame. I blame myself forallowing an intellectual friendship, a friendship whose primary aim wasnot the creation and contemplation of beautiful things, entirely todominate my life. From the very first there was too wide a gap betweenus. You had been idle at your school, worse than idle[41] at youruniversity. You did not realise that an artist, and especially such anartist as I am, one, that is to say, the quality of whose work dependson the intensification of personality, requires an intellectualatmosphere, quiet, peace, and solitude. You admired my work when it wasfinished: you enjoyed the brilliant successes of my first nights, andthe brilliant banquets that followed them: you were proud, and quitenaturally so, of being the intimate friend of an artist sodistinguished: but you could not understand the conditions requisite forthe production of artistic work. I am not speaking in phrases ofrhetorical exaggeration, but in terms of absolute truth to actual factwhen I remind you that during the whole time we were together I neverwrote one single line. Whether at Torquay, Goring, London, Florence, orelsewhere, my life, as long as you were by my side, was entirely sterileand uncreative. And with but few intervals, you were, I regret to say, by my side always. 

I remember, for instance, in September, '93, to select merely oneinstance out of many, taking a set of chambers, purely in order to workundisturbed, as I had broken my contract with John Hare, for whom I hadpromised to write a play, and who was pressing me on the subject. Duringthe first week you kept away. We had, not unnaturally indeed, differedon the question of the artistic value[42] of your translation of_Salomé_. So you contented yourself with sending me foolish letters onthe subject. In that week I wrote and completed in every detail, as itwas ultimately performed, the first act of an _An Ideal Husband_. Thesecond week you returned, and my work practically had to be given up. Iarrived at St. James's Place every morning at 11. 30 in order to have theopportunity of thinking and writing without the interruption inseparablefrom my own household, quiet and peaceful as that household was. But theattempt was vain. At 12 o'clock you drove up and stayed smokingcigarettes and chattering till 1. 30, when I had to take you out toluncheon at the Café Royal or the Berkeley. Luncheon with its liqueurslasted usually till 3. 30. For an hour you retired to White's. At teatime you appeared again and stayed till it was time to dress fordinner. You dined with me either at the Savoy or at Tite Street. We didnot separate as a rule till after midnight, as supper at Willis' had towind up the entrancing day. That was my life for those three months, every single day, except during the four days when you went abroad. Ithen, of course, had to go over to Calais to fetch you back. For one ofmy nature and temperament it was a position at once grotesque andtragic. 

You surely must realise that now. You must see now that your incapacityof being alone: your nature so exigent in its persistent claim on theattention and time of others: your lack of any power of sustainedintellectual concentration: the unfortunate accident--for I like tothink it was no more--that you had not been able to acquire the "Oxfordtemper" in intellectual matters, never, I mean, been one who could playgracefully with ideas, but had arrived at violence of opinionmerely--that all these things, combined with the fact that your desiresand your interests were in Life, not in Art, were as destructive to yourown progress in culture as they were to my work as an artist. When Icompare my friendship with you to my friendship with still younger men, as John Gray and Pierre Louys, I feel ashamed. My real life, my higherlife, was with them and such as they. 

Of the appalling results of my friendship with you I don't speak atpresent. I am thinking merely of its quality while it lasted. It wasintellectually degrading to me. You had the rudiments[43] of an artistictemperament in its germ. But I met you either too late or too soon. Idon't know which. When you were away I was all right. The moment, in theearly December of the year to which I have been alluding, I hadsucceeded in inducing your mother to send you out of England, Icollected again the torn and ravelled web of my imagination, got my lifeback into my own hands, and not merely finished the three remaining actsof the _Ideal Husband_, but conceived and had almost completed two otherplays of a completely different type, the _Florentine Tragedy_ and _LaSainte Courtesane_, when suddenly, unbidden, unwelcome, and undercircumstances fatal to my happiness, you returned. The two works leftthen imperfect I was unable to take up again. The mood that created themI could never recover. You now, having yourself published a volume ofverse, will be able to recognise the truth of everything I have saidhere. Whether you can or not it remains as a hideous truth in the veryheart of our friendship. While you were with me you were the absoluteruin of my art, and in allowing you to stand persistently between Artand myself, I give to myself shame and blame in the fullest degree. Youcouldn't appreciate, you couldn't know, you couldn't understand. I hadno right to expect it of you at all. Your interests were merely in yourmeals and moods. Your desires were simply for amusements, for ordinaryor less ordinary pleasures. They were what your temperament needed, orthought it needed for the moment. I should have forbidden you my houseand my chambers except when I specially invited you. I blame myselfwithout reserve for my weakness. It was merely weakness. One half-hourwith Art was always more to me than a cycle with you. Nothing really atany period of my life was ever of the smallest importance[44] to mecompared with Art. But in the case of an artist, weakness is nothingless than a crime when it is a weakness that paralyses the imagination. 

I blame myself for having allowed you to bring me to utter anddiscreditable financial ruin. I remember one morning in the earlyOctober of '92, sitting in the yellowing woods at Bracknell with yourmother. At that time I knew very little of your real nature. I hadstayed from a Saturday to Monday with you at Oxford. You had stayed withme at Cromer for ten days and played golf. The conversation turned onyou, and your mother began to speak to me about your character. She toldme of your two chief faults, your vanity, and your being, as she termedit, "all wrong about money. " I have a distinct recollection of how Ilaughed. I had no idea that the first would bring me to prison and thesecond to bankruptcy. I thought vanity a sort of graceful flower for ayoung man to wear, as for extravagance--the virtues of prudence andthrift were not in my own nature or my own race. But before ourfriendship was one month older I began to see what your mother reallymeant. Your insistence on a life of reckless profusion: your incessantdemands for money: your claim that all your pleasures should be paid forby me, whether I was with you or not, brought me, after some time, intoserious monetary difficulties, and what made the extravagance to me, atany rate, so monotonously uninteresting, as your persistent grasp on mylife grew stronger and stronger, was that the money was spent on littlemore than the pleasures of eating, drinking and the like. Now and thenit is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses, but yououtstripped all taste and temperance. You demanded without grace andreceived without thanks. You grew to think that you had a sort of rightto live at my expense, and in a profuse luxury to which you had neverbeen accustomed, and which, for that reason, made your appetites all themore keen, and at the end, if you lost money gambling in some AlgiersCasino, you simply telegraphed next morning to me in London to lodge theamount of your losses to your account at your bank, and gave the matterno further thought of any kind. 

When I tell you that between the autumn of 1892 and the date of myimprisonment, I spent with you and on you, more than £5, 000 in actualmoney, irrespective of the bills I incurred, you will have some idea ofthe sort of life on which you insisted. Do you think I exaggerate? Myordinary expenses with you for an ordinary day in London--for luncheon, dinner, supper, amusements, hansoms, and the rest of it--ranged from £12to £20, and the week's expenses were naturally in proportion and rangedfrom £80 to £130. For our three months at Goring my expenses (rent, ofcourse, included) were £1, 340. Step by step with the Bankruptcy ReceiverI had to go over every item of my life. It was horrible. "Plain livingand high thinking, " was, of course, an ideal you could not at that timehave appreciated, but such an extravagance was a disgrace to both ofus. One of the most delightful dinners I remember ever having had is oneRobbie and I had together in a little Soho Café, which cost about asmany shillings as my dinners to you used to cost pounds. Out of mydinner with Robbie came the first and best of all my dialogues. Idea, title, treatment, mode, everything was struck out at a 3 franc 50c. Table d'hôte. Out of the reckless dinners with you nothing remains butthe memory that too much was eaten and too much was drunk. And myyielding to your demands was bad for you. You know that now. It made yougrasping often: at times not a little unscrupulous: ungracious always. There was, on far too many occasions, too little joy or privilege inbeing your host. You forgot--I will not say the formal courtesy ofthanks, for formal courtesies will strain a close friendship--but simplythe grace of sweet companionship, the charm of pleasant conversation, and all those gentle humanities that make life lovely, and are anaccompaniment to life as music might be, keeping things in tune andfilling with melody the harsh or silent places. And though it may seemstrange to you that one in the terrible position in which I am situated, should find a difference between one disgrace and another, still Ifrankly admit that the folly of throwing away all this money on you, andletting you squander my fortune to your own hurt as well as to mine, gives to me and in my eyes a note of common profligacy to my bankruptcythat makes me doubly ashamed of it. I was made for other things. 

But most of all I blame myself for the entire ethical degradation Iallowed you to bring on me. The basis of character is will power, and mywill power became absolutely subject[45] to yours. It sounds a grotesquething to say, but it is none the less true. Those incessant scenes thatseemed to be almost physically necessary to you, and in which your mindand body grew distorted, and you became a thing as terrible to look atas to listen to: that dreadful mania you inherit from your father, themania for writing revolting and loathsome letters: your entire lack ofany control over your emotions as displayed in your long resentfulmoods of sullen silence, no less than in the sudden fits of almostepileptic rage: all these things in reference to which one of my lettersto you, left by you lying about in the Savoy or some other hotel, and soproduced in court by your father's counsel, contained an entreaty notdevoid of pathos, had you at that time been able to recognise pathoseither in its elements or its expression--these, I say, were the originand causes of my fatal yielding to you in your daily increasing demands. You wore me out. It was the triumph of the smaller over the biggernature. It was the case of that tyranny of the weak over the strongwhich somewhere in one of my plays I describe as being "the only tyrannythat lasts. " And it was inevitable. In every relation of life withothers one has to find some _moyen de vivre_. 

I had always thought that my giving up to you in small things meantnothing: that when a great moment arrived I could myself re-assert mywill power in its natural superiority. It was not so. At the greatmoment my will power completely failed me. In life there is really nogreat or small thing. All things are of equal value and of equal size. My habit--due to indifference chiefly at first--of giving up to you ineverything had become insensibly a real part of my nature. Without myknowing it, it had stereotyped my temperament to one permanent and fatalmood. That is why, in the subtle epilogue to the first edition of hisessays, Pater says that "Failure is to form habits. " When he said it thedull Oxford people thought the phrase a mere wilful inversion of thesomewhat wearisome text of Aristotelian Ethics, but there is awonderful, a terrible truth hidden in it. I had allowed you to sap mystrength of character, and to me the formation of a habit had proved tobe not failure merely, but ruin. Ethically you had been even still moredestructive to me than you had been artistically. 

The warrant once granted, your will, of course, directed everything. Ata time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel and calmlyconsidering the hideous trap in which I had allowed myself to becaught--the booby trap, as your father calls it to the present day--youinsisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo, of all revolting places onGod's earth, that all day and all night as well, you might gamble aslong as the casino remained open. As for me--baccarat[46] having nocharms for me--I was left alone outside by myself. You refused todiscuss even for five minutes the position to which you and your fatherhad brought me. My business was merely to pay your hotel expenses andyour losses. The slightest allusion to the ordeal awaiting me wasregarded as a bore. A new brand of champagne that was recommended to ushad more interest for you. On our return to London those of my friendswho really desired my welfare implored me to retire abroad, and not toface an impossible trial. You imputed mean motives to them for givingsuch advice and cowardice to me for listening to it. You forced me tostay to brazen it out, if possible, in the box by absurd and sillyperjuries. At the end, of course, I was arrested, and your father becamethe hero of the hour. 

As far as I can make out, I ended my friendship with you every threemonths regularly. And each time that I did so you managed by means ofentreaties, telegrams, letters, the interposition of your friends, theinterposition of mine, and the like to induce me to allow you back. 

But the froth and folly of our life grew often very wearisome to me: itwas only in the mire that we met: and fascinating, terribly fascinatingthough the one[47] topic round which your talk invariably centered was, still at the end it became quite monotonous to me. I was often bored todeath by it, and accepted it as I accepted your passion for music halls, or your mania for absurd extravagance in eating and drinking, or anyother of your to me less attractive characteristics, as a thing that isto say, that one simply had to put up with, a part of the high price onehad to pay for knowing you. 

When you came one Monday evening to my rooms, accompanied by two[48] ofyour friends, I found myself actually flying abroad next morning toescape from you, giving my family some absurd reason for my suddendeparture, and leaving a false address with my servant for fear youmight follow me by the next train. .. . 

Our friendship had always been a source of distress to my wife: notmerely because she had never liked you personally, but because she sawhow your continual companionship altered me, and not for the better. 

You started without delay for Paris, sending me passionate telegrams onthe road to beg me to see you once, at any rate. I declined. You arrivedin Paris late on a Saturday night and found a brief letter from mewaiting for you at your hotel stating that I would not see you. Nextmorning I received in Tite Street a telegram of some ten or eleven pagesin length from you. You stated in it that no matter what you had done tome you could not believe that I would absolutely decline to see you; youreminded me that for the sake of seeing me even for one hour you hadtravelled six days and six nights across Europe without stopping once onthe way; you made what I must admit was a most pathetic appeal, andended with what seemed to me a threat of suicide and one not thinlyveiled. You had yourself often told me how many of your race there hadbeen who had stained their hands in their own blood: your unclecertainly, your grandfather possibly; many others in the mad bad linefrom which you come. Pity, my old affection for you, regard for yourmother, to whom your death under such dreadful circumstances would havebeen a blow almost too great for her to bear, the horror of the ideathat so young a life, and one that amidst all its ugly faults had stillpromise of beauty in it, should come to so revolting an end, merehumanity itself--all these, if excuses be necessary, must serve as anexcuse for consenting to accord you one last interview. When I arrivedin Paris, your tears breaking out again and again all through theevening, and falling over your cheeks like rain as we sat at dinnerfirst at Voisin's, at supper at Paillard's afterwards, the unfeigned joyyou evinced at seeing me, holding my hand whenever you could, as thoughyou were a gentle and penitent child; your contrition, so simple andsincere at the moment made me consent to renew our friendship. Two daysafter we had returned to London, your father saw you having luncheonwith me at the Café Royal, joined my table, drank of my wine, and thatafternoon, through a letter addressed to you, began his first attack onme. .. . It may be strange, but I had once again, I will not say thechance, but the duty, of separating from you forced on me. I need hardlyremind you that I refer to your conduct to me at Brighton from October10th to 13th, 1894. Three years is a long time for you to go back. Butwe who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bittermoments. We have nothing else to think of. Suffering, curious as it maysound to you, is the means by which we exist, because it is the onlymeans by which we become conscious of existing; and the remembrance ofsuffering in the past is necessary to us as the warrant, the evidence, of our continued identity. Between myself and the memory of joy lies agulf no less deep than that between myself and joy in its actuality. Hadour life together been as the world fancied it to be, one simply ofpleasure, profligacies and laughter, I would not be able to recall asingle passage in it. It is because it was full of moments and daystragic, bitter, sinister in their warnings, dull or dreadful in theirmonotonous scenes and unseemly violences, that I can see or hear eachseparate incident in its detail, can indeed see or hear little else. Somuch in this place do men live by pain that my friendship with you, inthe way through which I am forced to remember it, appears to me alwaysas a prelude consonant with those varying modes of anguish which eachday I have to realise, nay more, to necessitate them even; as though mylife, whatever it had seemed to myself and others, had all the whilebeen a real symphony of sorrow, passing through its rhythmically linkedmovements to its certain resolution, with that inevitableness that inArt characterises the treatment of every great theme. .. . I spoke of yourconduct to me on three successive days three years ago, did I not?

I entertained you, of course, I had no option in the matter; butelsewhere, and not in my own home. The next day, Monday, your companionreturned to the duties[49] of his profession, and you stayed with me. Bored with Worthing, and still more, I have no doubt, with my fruitlessefforts to concentrate my attention on my play, the only thing thatreally interested me at the moment, you insist on being taken to theGrand Hotel at Brighton. 

The night we arrive you fall ill with that dreadful low fever that isfoolishly called the influenza, your second, if not your third, attack. I need not remind you how I waited on you, and tended you, not merelywith every luxury of fruit, flowers, presents, books and the like thatmoney can procure, but with that affection, tenderness and love that, whatever you may think, is not to be procured for money. Except for anhour's walk in the morning, an hour's drive in the afternoon, I neverleft the hotel. I got special grapes from London for you as you did notcare for those the hotel supplied; invented things to please you;remained either with you or in the room next to yours; sat with youevery evening to quiet or amuse you. 

After four or five days you recover, and I take lodgings in order to tryand finish my play. You, of course, accompany me. The morning after theday on which we were installed I feel extremely ill. 

The doctor finds I have caught the influenza from you. 

There is no manservant to wait on me, not even any one to send out on amessage, or to get what the doctor orders. But you are there. I feel noalarm. The next two days you leave me entirely alone without care, without attendance, without anything. It was not a question of grapes, flowers and charming gifts: it was a question of mere necessities. 

And when I was left all day without anything to read, you calmly tell methat you bought the book I wanted, and that they had promised to send itdown, a statement which I found by chance afterwards to have beenentirely untrue, from beginning to end. All the while you are, ofcourse, living at my expense, driving about, dining at the Grand Hotel, and indeed only appearing in my room for money. On the Saturday night, you having completely left me unattended and alone since the morning, Iasked you to come back after dinner, and sit with me for a little. Withirritable voice and ungracious manner you promise to do so. I wait till11 o'clock, and you never appear. 

At three in the morning, unable to sleep, and tortured with thirst, Imade my way in the dark and cold, down to the sitting-room in the hopesof finding some water there. I found you. You fell on me with everyhideous word an intemperate mood, an undisciplined and untutored naturecould suggest. By the terrible alchemy of egotism you converted yourremorse into rage. You accused me of selfishness in expecting you to bewith me when I was ill; of standing between you and your amusements; oftrying to deprive you of your pleasures. 

You told me, and I know it was quite true, that you had come back atmidnight simply in order to change your dress-clothes, and go out again. 

I told you at length to leave the room; you pretended to do so, but whenI lifted up my head from the pillow in which I had buried it, you werestill there, and with brutality of laughter and hysteria of rage youmoved suddenly towards me. A sense of horror came over me, for whatexact reason I could not make out; but I got out of my bed at once, andbare-footed and just as I was, made my way down the two nights of stairsto the sitting-room. 

You returned silently for money; took what you could find on thedressing table, and mantelpiece, and left the house with your luggage. Need I tell you what I thought of you during the two lonely wretcheddays of illness that followed? Is it necessary for me to state, that Isaw clearly that it would be a dishonour to myself to continue even anacquaintance with such a one as you had showed yourself to be? That Irecognised that the ultimate moment had come and recognised it as beingreally a great relief? And that I knew that for the future my art andlife would be freer and better and more beautiful in every possible way?Ill as I was, I felt at ease. The fact that the separation wasirrevocable gave me peace. 

Wednesday was my birthday. Amongst the telegrams and communications onmy table was a letter in your handwriting. I opened it with a sense ofsadness on me. I knew that the time had gone by when a pretty phrase, anexpression of affection, a word of sorrow, would make me take you back. But I was entirely deceived. I had underrated you. 

You congratulated me on my prudence in leaving the sick bed, on mysudden flight downstairs. "It was an ugly moment for you, " you said, "uglier than you imagine. " Ah! I felt it but too well. What it hadreally meant I do not know; whether you had with you the pistol you hadbought to try to frighten your father with, and that thinking it to beunloaded, you had once fired off in a public restaurant in my company;whether your hand was moving towards a common dinner knife that bychance was lying on the table between us; whether forgetting in yourrage your low[50] stature and inferior strength, you had thought of somespecial personal insult, or attack even, as I lay ill there; I could nottell. I do not know to the present moment. All I know is that a feelingof utter horror had come over me, and that I had felt that unless I leftthe room at once and got away, you would have done or tried to dosomething that would have been, even to you, a source of lifelongshame. .. . 

On your return to town from the actual scene of the tragedy to which youhad been summoned, you came at once to me very sweetly and very simply, in your suit of woe, and with your eyes dim with tears. You soughtconsolation and help, as a child might seek it. I opened to you myhouse, my home, my heart. I made your sorrow mine also, that you mighthave help in bearing it. Never even by one word, did I allude to yourconduct towards me, to the revolting scenes, and the revolting letter. 

The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments toscourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving. But for my pity and affection for you and yours, I wouldnot now be weeping in this terrible place. 

Of course, I discern in all our relations, not destiny merely, butDoom--Doom that walks always swiftly, because she goes to the sheddingof blood. Through your father you come of a race, marriage with whom ishorrible, friendship fatal, and that lays violent hands either on itsown life, or on the lives of others. 

In every little circumstance in which the ways of our lives met, inevery point of great or seemingly trivial import in which you came to mefor pleasure or help, in the small chances, the slight accidents thatlook, in their relation to life, to be no more than the dust that dancesin a beam, or the leaf that flutters from a tree, ruin followed like theecho of a bitter cry, or the shadow that hunts with the beast of prey. 

Our friendship really begins with your begging me, in a most patheticand charming letter, to assist you in a position appalling to anyone, doubly so to a young man at Oxford. I do so, and ultimately, throughyour using my name as your friend with Sir George Lewis I begin to losehis esteem and friendship, a friendship of fifteen years' standing. WhenI was deprived of his advice and help and regard, I was deprived of theone great safeguard of my life. You send me a very nice poem of theundergraduate school of verse for my approval. I reply by a letter offantastic literary conceits; I compare you to Hylas, or Hyacinth, Jonquil or Narcissus, or some one whom the Great God of Poetry favoured, and honoured with his love. The letter is like a passage from one ofShakespeare's sonnets transposed to a minor key. 

It was, let me say frankly, the sort of letter I would, in a happy, ifwilful moment, have written to any graceful young man of eitheruniversity who had sent me a poem of his own making, certain that hewould have sufficient wit, or culture, to interpret rightly itsfantastic phrases. Look at the history of that letter! It passes fromyou into the hands of a loathsome companion[51], from him to a gang ofblackmailers, copies of it are sent about London to my friends, and tothe manager[52] of the theatre where my work is being performed, everyconstruction but the right one is put on it, society is thrilled withthe absurd rumours that I have had to pay a high sum of money for havingwritten an infamous letter to you; this forms the basis of your father'sworst attack. 

I produce the original letter myself in court to show what it really is;it is denounced by your father's counsel as a revolting and insidiousattempt to corrupt innocence; ultimately it forms part of a criminalcharge; the crown takes it up; the judge sums up on it with littlelearning and much morality; I go to prison for it at last. That is theresult of writing you a charming letter. 

It makes me feel sometimes as if you yourself had been merely a puppetworked by some secret and unseen hand to bring terrible events to aterrible issue. But puppets themselves have passions. They will bring anew plot into what they are presenting, and twist the ordered issue ofvicissitude to suit some whim or appetite of their own. To be entirelyfree, and at the same time entirely dominated by law, is the eternalparadox of human life that we realise at every moment; and this, I oftenthink, is the only explanation possible of your nature, if indeed forthe profound and terrible mystery of a human soul there is anyexplanation at all, except one that makes the mystery all the moremarvellous still. 

I thought life was going to be a brilliant comedy, and that you were tobe one of the graceful figures in it. I found it to be a revolting andrepellent tragedy, and that the sinister occasion of the greatcatastrophe, sinister in its concentration of aim and intensity ofnarrowed will power, was yourself stripped of the mask of joy andpleasure by which you, no less than I, had been deceived and led astray. 

The memory of our friendship is the shadow that walks with me here: thatseems never to leave me: that wakes me up at night to tell me the samestory over and over till its wearisome iteration makes all sleep abandonme till dawn: at dawn it begins again: it follows me into the prisonyard and makes me talk to myself as I tramp round: each detail thataccompanied each dreadful moment I am forced to recall: there is nothingthat happened in those ill-starred years that I cannot recreate in thatchamber of the brain which is set apart for grief or for despair; everystrained note of your voice, every twitch and gesture of your nervoushands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase comes back to me: Iremember the street or river down which we passed: the wall or woodlandthat surrounded us; at what figure on the dial stood the hands of theclock; which way went the wings of the wind, the shape and colour of themoon. 

There is, I know, one answer to all that I have said to you, and that isthat you loved me: that all through those two and a half years duringwhich the fates were weaving into one scarlet pattern the threads of ourdivided lives you really loved me. 

Though I saw quite clearly that my position in the world of art, theinterest that my personality had always excited, my money, the luxury inwhich I lived, the thousand and one things that went to make up a lifeso charmingly and so wonderfully improbable as mine was, were, each andall of them, elements that fascinated you and made you cling to me; yetbesides all this there was something more, some strange attraction foryou: you loved me far better than you loved anyone else. But you, likemyself, have had a terrible tragedy in your life, though one of anentirely opposite character to mine. Do you want to learn what it was?It was this. In you, hate was always stronger than love. Your hatred[53]of your father was of such stature that it entirely outstripped, overgrew, and overshadowed your love of me. There was no strugglebetween them at all, or but little; of such dimensions was your hatredand of such monstrous growth. You did not realise that there was no roomfor both passions in the same soul: they cannot live together in thatfair carven house. Love is fed by the imagination, by which we becomewiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are; by which wecan see life as a whole; by which and by which alone, we can understandothers in their real as in their ideal relations. Only what is fine, andfinely conceived, can feed love. But anything will feed hate. There wasnot a glass of champagne that you drank, not a rich dish that you ate ofin all those years, that did not feed your hate and make it fat. So togratify it, you gambled with my life, as you gambled with my money, carelessly, recklessly, indifferent to the consequences. If you lost, the loss would not, you fancied, be yours. If you won, yours, you knew, would be the exultation and the advantages of victory. 

Hate blinds people. You were not aware of that. Love can read thewriting on the remotest star, but hate so blinded you that you could seeno further than the narrow, walled in, and already lust-withered gardenof your common desires. Your terrible lack of imagination, the onereally fatal defect in your character, was entirely the result of thehate that lived in you. Subtly, silently, and in secret, hate gnawed atyour nature, as the lichen bites at the root of some sallow plant, tillyou grew to see nothing but the most meagre interests and the most pettyaims. That faculty in you which love would have fostered, hate poisonedand paralysed. 

The idea of your being the object of a terrible quarrel between yourfather and a man of my position seemed to delight you. 

You scented the chance of a public scandal and flew to it. The prospectof a battle in which you would be safe delighted you. 

You know what my art was to me, the great primal note by which I hadrevealed, first myself to myself, and then myself to the world, thegreat passion of my life, the love to which all other loves were asmarsh water to red wine, or the glow worm of the marsh to the magicmirror of the moon. .. . Don't you understand now that your lack ofimagination was the one really fatal defect of your character? What youhad to do was quite simple, and quite clear before you; but hate hadblinded you, and you could see nothing. 

Life is quite lovely to you. And yet, if you are wise, and wish to findlife much lovelier still, and in a different manner you will let thereading of this terrible letter--for such I know it is--prove to you asimportant a crisis and turning point of your life as the writing of itis to me. Your pale face used to flush easily with wine or pleasure. If, as you read what is here written, it from time to time becomes scorched, as though by a furnace blast, with shame, it will be all the better foryou. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right. 

How clearly I saw it then, as now, I need not tell you. But I said tomyself, "At all costs I must keep love in my heart. If I go into prisonwithout love, what will become of my soul?" The letters I wrote to youat that time from Holloway were my efforts to keep love as the dominantnote of my own nature. I could, if I had chosen, have torn you to pieceswith bitter reproaches. I could have rent you with maledictions. 

The sins of another were being placed to my account. Had I so chosen, Icould on either trial have saved myself at his expense, not from shameindeed, but from imprisonment. [54] Had I cared to show that the crownwitnesses--the three most important--had been carefully coached by yourfather and his solicitors, not in reticences merely, but in assertions, in the absolute transference deliberate, plotted, and rehearsed, of theactions and doings of someone else on to me, I could have had each oneof them dismissed from the box by the judge, more summarily than evenwretched perjured Atkins was. I could have walked out of court with mytongue in my cheek, and my hands in my pockets, a free man. Thestrongest pressure was put upon me to do so, I was earnestly advised, begged, entreated to do so by people, whose sole interest was mywelfare, and the welfare of my house. But I refused. I did not choose todo so. I have never regretted my decision for a single moment, even inthe most bitter periods of my imprisonment. Such a course of actionwould have been beneath me. Sins of the flesh are nothing. They aremaladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of thesoul alone are shameful. To have secured my acquittal by such meanswould have been a life-long torture to me. But do you really think thatyou were worthy of the love I was showing you then, or that for a singlemoment I thought you were? Do you really think that any period of ourfriendship you were worthy of the love I showed you, or that for asingle moment I thought you were? I knew you were not. But love does nottraffic in a market place, nor use a huckster's scales. Its joy, likethe joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive. The aim of love is tolove; no more, and no less. You were my enemy; such an enemy as no manever had. I had given you my life; and to gratify the lowest and mostcontemptible of all human passions, hatred and vanity and greed, you hadthrown it away. In less than three years you had entirely ruined me fromevery point of view. 

After my terrible sentence, when the prison dress was on me, and theprison house closed, I sat amidst the ruins of my wonderful life, crushed by anguish, bewildered with terror, dazed through pain. But Iwould not hate you. Every day I said to myself, "I must keep love in myheart to-day, else how shall I live through the day?" I reminded myselfthat you meant no evil to me at any rate. .. . 

It all flashed across me, and I remember that for the first and lasttime in my entire prison life, I laughed. In that laugh was all thescorn of all the world. Prince Fleur de lys! I saw that nothing that hadhappened had made you realise a single thing. You were, in your owneyes, still the graceful prince of a trivial comedy, not the sombrefigure of a tragic show. 

Had there been nothing in your heart to cry out against so vulgar asacrilege, you might at least have remembered the sonnet he wrote whosaw with such sorrow and scorn the letters of John Keats sold by publicauction in London, and have understood at last the real meaning of mylines:

 ". .. I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet's heart That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat. "

One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed on one, nor riseup every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul. 

I cannot allow you to go through life bearing in your heart the burdenof having ruined a man like me. 

Does it ever occur to you what an awful position I would have been inif, for the last two years, during my appalling sentence, I had beendependent on you as a friend? Do you ever think of that? Do you everfeel any gratitude to those who by kindness without stint, devotionwithout limit, cheerfulness and joy in giving, have lightened my blackburden for me, have arranged my future life for me, have visited meagain and again, have written to me beautiful and sympathetic letters, have managed my affairs for me, have stood by me in the teeth ofobloquy, taunt, open sneer or insult even? I thank God every day that hegave me friends other than you. I owe everything to them. The very booksin my cell are paid for by Robbie out of his pocket money. From the samesource[55] are to come clothes for me when I am released. I am notashamed of taking a thing that is given by love and affection. I amproud of it. But do you ever think of what friends such as More Adey, Robbie, Robert Sherard, Frank Harris, and Arthur Clifton have been to mein giving me comfort, help, affection, sympathy and the like?. .. 

I know that your mother, Lady Queensberry, puts the blame on me. I hearof it, not from people who know you, but from people who do not knowyou, and do not desire to know you. I hear of it often. She talks of theinfluence of an elder over a younger man, for instance. It is one of herfavourite attitudes towards the question, as it is always a successfulappeal to popular prejudice and ignorance. I need not ask you whatinfluence I had over you. You know I had none. 

It was one of your frequent boasts that I had none, the only one indeed, that was well founded. What was there, as a mere matter of fact, in youthat I could influence? Your brain? It was undeveloped. Yourimagination? It was dead. Your heart? It was not yet born. Of all thepeople who have ever crossed my life, you were the one, and the onlyone, I was unable in any way to influence in any direction. 

I waited month after month to hear from you. Even if I had not beenwaiting but had shut the doors against you, you should have rememberedthat no one can possibly shut the doors against love forever. The unjustjudge in the gospels rises up at length to give a just decision becausejustice comes daily knocking at his door: and at night time the friend, in whose heart there is no real friendship, yields at length to hisfriend "because of his importunity. " There is no prison in any worldinto which love cannot force an entrance. If you did not understandthat, you did not understand anything about love at all. .. . 

Write to me with full frankness, about yourself: about your life: yourfriends: your occupations: your books. Whatever you have to say foryourself, say it without fear. Don't write what you don't mean: that isall. If anything in your letter is false or counterfeit I shall detectit by the ring at once. It is not for nothing, or to no purpose that inmy lifelong cult of literature, I have made myself, "Miser of sound and syllable, no less Than Midas of his coinage. "

Remember also that I have yet to know you. Perhaps we have yet to knoweach other. For myself, I have but this last thing to say. Do not beafraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, do notbelieve them. The past, the present and the future are but one moment inthe sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of a thought. The imagination can transcend them and more, in a free sphere of idealexistences. Things, also, are in their essence what we choose to makethem. A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it. "Whereothers, " says Blake, "see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see thesons of God shouting for joy. " What seemed to the world and to myself myfuture I lost irretrievably when I let myself be taunted into taking theaction against your father, had, I daresay, lost in reality long beforethat. What lies before me is the past. I have got to make myself look onthat with different eyes, to make the world look on it with differenteyes, to make God look on it with different eyes. This I cannot do byignoring it, or slighting it, or praising it, or denying it. It is onlyto be done fully by accepting it as an inevitable part of the evolutionof my life and character: by bowing my head to everything that I havesuffered. 

How far I am away from the true temper of soul, this letter in itschanging, uncertain moods, its scorn and bitterness, its aspirations andits failures to realise those aspirations shows you quite clearly. Butdo not forget in what a terrible school I am setting at my task. Andincomplete, imperfect, as I am, yet from me you may have still much togain. You came to me to learn the pleasure of life and the pleasure ofart. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something much more wonderful, themeaning of sorrow and its beauty. 

Your affectionate friend, OSCAR WILDE. 

This letter of Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas is curiouslyself-revealing and characteristic. While reading it one should recallOscar's provocation. Lord Alfred Douglas had driven him to theprosecution, and then deserted him and left him in prison without usinghis influence to mitigate his friend's suffering or his pen to consoleand encourage him. The abandonment was heartless and complete. Theletter, however, is vindictive: in spite of its intimate revelationsOscar took care that his indictment should be made public. The flagrantself-deceptions of the plea show its sincerity: Oscar even accuses youngAlfred Douglas of having induced him to eat and drink too much. 

The tap-root of the letter is a colossal vanity; the bitterness of it, wounded egotism; the falseness of it, a self-righteous pose of ineffablesuperiority as of a superman. Oscar denies to Alfred Douglasimagination, scholarship, or even a knowledge of poetry: he tells him inso many words:--he is without brain or heart. Then why did he allowhimself to be hag-ridden to his ruin by such a creature?

Yet how human the letter is, how pathetic!

OSCAR WILDE'S KINDNESS OF HEART

Here is a note which Oscar Wilde wrote to Warder Martin towards the endof his imprisonment in Reading Gaol. Warder Martin, it will beremembered, was dismissed from his post for having given some sweetbiscuits, bought with his own money, to some hungry little childrenconfined in the prison. 

Wilde happened to see the children and immediately wrote this note on ascrap of paper and slipped it under his door so that it should catchWarder Martin's eye as he patrolled the corridor. 

 Please find out for me the name of A. 2. 11. Also, the names of the children who are in for the rabbits, and the amount of the fine. 

 Can I pay this and get them out? If so I will get them out tomorrow. Please, dear friend, do this for me. I must get them out. 

 Think what a thing for me it would be to be able to help three little children. I would be delighted beyond words: if I can do this by paying the fine tell the children that they are to be released tomorrow by a friend, and ask them to be happy and not to tell anyone. 

Here is a second note which shows Oscar's peculiar sensitiveness; whatis ugly and terrible cannot, he thinks, furnish even the subject of art;he shrinks from whatever gives pain. 

 I hope to write about prison-life and to try and change it for others, but it is too terrible and ugly to make a work of art of. I have suffered too much in it to write plays about it. 

A third note simply thanks Warder Martin for all his kindness. It endswith the words:

 . .. Everyone tells me I am looking better and happier. 

 This is because I have a good friend who gives me _The Chronicle_ and PROMISES me ginger biscuits. O. W. 

MY COLDNESS TOWARDS OSCAR IN 1897

(See page 408)

When I talked with Oscar in Reading Gaol, he told me that the onlyreason he didn't write was that no one would accept his work. I assuredhim that I would publish it in _The Saturday Review_ and would pay forit not only at the rate I paid Bernard Shaw but also if it increased thesale of the journal I'd try to compute its value to the paper and givehim that besides. He told me that was too liberal; he would be quitecontent with what I paid Shaw: he feared that no one else in Englandwould ever publish his work again. 

He promised to send me the book "De Profundis" as soon as it wasfinished. Just before his release his friend, Mr. More Adey, called uponme and wanted to know whether I would publish Oscar's work. I said Iwould. He then asked me what I would give for it. I told him I didn'twant to make anything out of Oscar and would give him as much as Icould, rehearsing the proposal I had made to Oscar. Thereupon he told meOscar would prefer a fixed price. I thought the answer extraordinary andthe gentle, urbane manner of Mr. More Adey, whom I hardly knew at thattime and misunderstood, got on my nerves. I replied curtly that before Icould state a price, I'd have to see the work, adding at the same timethat I had wished to do Oscar a good turn, but, if he could find anotherpublisher, I'd be delighted. Mr. More Adey assured me that there wasnothing in the book to which any prude even could object, no _arrièrepensée_ of any kind, and so forth and so on. I answered with a jest, awretched play on his French phrase. 

That night I happened to dine with Whistler and telling him of what hadoccurred called forth a most stinging gibe at Oscar's expense. Whistler's _mot_ cannot be published. 

A week or two later Oscar asked me to get him some clothes, which I didand on his release sent them to him, and received in reply a letterthanking me which I reproduce on page 583. 

In that same talk with Oscar in Reading Gaol, I was so desirous ofhelping him that I proposed a driving tour through France. I told him ofone I had made a couple of years before which was full of delightfulepisodes--an entrancing holiday. He jumped at the idea, said nothingwould please him better, he would feel safe with me, and so forth. Inorder to carry out the idea in the best way I ordered an American mailphaeton so that a pair of horses would find the load, even with luggage, ridiculously light. I asked Mr. More Adey whether Oscar had spoken tohim of this proposed trip: he told me he had heard nothing of it. 

In one letter to me Oscar asked me to postpone the tour; afterwards henever mentioned it. I thought I had been treated rather cavalierly. As Ihad gone to some expense in getting everything ready and making myselffree, I, no doubt, expressed some amazement at Oscar's silence on thematter. At any rate the idea got about that I was angry with him, andOscar believed it. Nothing could have been further from the truth. WhatI had done and proposed was simply in his interest: I expected nobenefit of any kind and therefore could not be cross; but the beliefthat I was angry drew this sincere and touching letter from Oscar, whichI think shows him almost as perfectly as that still more beautifulletter to Robert Ross which I have inserted in Chapter XIX. 

FromM. Sebastian Melmoth, Hotel de la Plage, Bernavol-sur-Mer, Dieppe. 

June 13, '97

MY DEAR FRANK:

I know you do not like writing letters, but still I think you might havewritten me a line in answer, or acknowledgment of my letter[56] to youfrom Dieppe. I am thinking of a story to be called "The Silence of FrankHarris. "

I have, however, heard during the last few days that you do not speak ofme in the friendly manner I would like. This distresses me very much. 

I am told that you are hurt with me because my letter of thanks to youwas not sufficiently elaborated in expression. This I can hardly credit. It seems so unworthy of a big strong nature like yours, that knows therealities of life. I told you I was grateful to you for your kindness tome. Words, _now_, to me signify things, actualities, real emotions, realised thoughts. I learnt in prison to be grateful. I used to thinkgratitude a burden. Now I know that it is something that makes lifelighter as well as lovelier for one. I am grateful for a thousandthings, from my good friends down to the sun and the sea. But I cannotsay more than that I am grateful. I cannot make phrases about it. For_me_ to use such a word shows an enormous development in my nature. Twoyears ago I did not know the feeling the word denotes. Now I know it, and I am thankful that I have learnt that much, at any rate, by havingbeen in prison. But I must say again that I no longer make _roulades_ ofphrases about the deep things I feel. When I write directly to you, Ispeak directly: violin variations don't interest me. I am grateful toyou. If that does not content you, then you do not understand, what youof all men should understand, how sincerity of feeling expresses itself. But I dare say the story told of you is untrue. It comes from so manyquarters that it probably is. 

I am told also that you are hurt[57] because I did not go on thedriving-tour with you. You should understand, that in telling you thatit was impossible for me to do so, I was thinking as much of _you_ as ofmyself. To think of the feelings and happiness of others is not anentirely new emotion in my nature. I would be unjust to myself and myfriends, if I said it was. But I think of those things far more than Iused to do. If I had gone with you, you would not have been happy, norenjoyed yourself. Nor would I. You must try to realise what two yearscellular confinement is, and what two years of absolute silence meansto a man of my intellectual power. To have survived at all--to have comeout sane in mind and sound of body--is a thing so marvellous to me, thatit seems to me sometimes, not that the age of miracles is over, but thatit is just beginning; that there are powers in God, and powers in man, of which the world has up to the present known little. But while I amcheerful, happy, and have sustained to the full that passionate interestin life and art that was the dominant chord of my nature, and made allmodes of existence and all forms of expression utterly fascinating to mealways--still I need rest, quiet, and often complete solitude. Friendshave come to see me here for a day, and have been delighted to find melike my old self, in all intellectual energy and sensitiveness to theplay of life, but it has always proved afterwards to have been a strainupon a nervous force, much of which has been destroyed. I have now no_storage_[58] of nervous force. When I expend what I have, in anafternoon, nothing remains. I look to quiet, to a simple mode ofexistence, to nature in all the infinite meanings of an infinite word, to charge the cells for me. Every day, if I meet a friend, or write aletter longer than a few lines, or even read a book that makes, as allfine books do, a direct claim on me, a direct appeal, an intellectualchallenge of any kind, I am utterly exhausted in the evening, and oftensleep badly. And yet it is three whole weeks since I was released. 

Had I gone with you on the driving tour, where we would have ofnecessity been in immediate contact with each other from dawn to sunset, I would have certainly broken off the tour the third day, probablybroken down the second. You would have then found yourself in a pitiableposition: your tour would have been arrested at its outset: yourcompanion would have been ill without doubt: perhaps might have neededcare and attendance, in some little remote French village. You wouldhave given it to me, I know. But I felt it would have been wrong, stupid, and thoughtless of me to have started an expedition doomed toswift failure, and perhaps fraught with disaster and distress. You are aman of dominant personality: your intellect is exigent, more so thanthat of any man I ever knew: your demands on life are enormous: yourequire response, or you annihilate: the pleasure of being with you isin the clash of personality, the intellectual battle, the war of ideas. To survive you, one must have a strong brain, an assertive ego, adynamic character. In your luncheon parties, in the old days, theremains of the guests were taken away with the _débris_ of the feast. Ihave often lunched with you in Park Lane and found myself the onlysurvivor. I might have driven on the white roads, or through the leafylanes, of France, with a fool, or with the wisest of all things, achild: with you, it would have been impossible. You should thank mesincerely for having saved you from an experience that each of us wouldhave always regretted. 

Will you ask me why then, when I was in prison, I accepted with gratefulthanks your offer? My dear Frank, I don't think you will ask sothoughtless a question. The prisoner looks to liberty as an immediatereturn to all his ancient energy, quickened into more vital forces bylong disuse. When he goes out, he finds he has still to suffer: hispunishment, as far as its effects go, lasts intellectually andphysically just as it lasts socially: he has still to pay: one gets noreceipt for the past when one walks out into the beautiful air. .. . 

I have now spent the whole of my Sunday afternoon--the first real day ofsummer we have had--in writing to you this long letter of explanation. 

I have written directly and simply: I need not tell the author of "ElderConklin" that sweetness and simplicity of expression take more out ofone than fiddling harmonics on one string. I felt it my duty to write, but it has been a distressing one. It would have been _better_ for me tohave lain in the brown grass on the cliff, or to have walked slowly bythe sea. It would have been kinder of you to have written to me directlyabout whatever harsh or hurt feelings you may have about me. It wouldhave saved me an afternoon of strain, and tension. 

But I have something more to say. It is pleasanter to me, now, to writeabout others, than about myself. 

The enclosed is from a brother prisoner of mine: released June 4th: prayread it: you will see his age, offence, and aim in life. 

If you can give him a trial, do so. If you see your way to this kindaction, and write to him to come and see you, kindly state in yourletter that it is about a situation. He may think otherwise that it isabout the flogging of A. 2. 11. , a thing that does not interest _you_, and about which _he_ is a little afraid to talk. 

If the result of this long letter will be that you will help this fellowprisoner of mine to a place in your service, I shall consider myafternoon better spent than any afternoon for the last two years, andthree weeks. 

In any case I have now written to you fully on all things as reported tome. 

I again assure you of my gratitude for your kindness to me during myimprisonment, and on my release. 

And am always

Your sincere friend and admirer

OSCAR WILDE. 

_With regard to Lawley_

All soldiers are neat, and smart, and make capital servants. He would bea good _groom_: he is, I believe, a 3rd Hussars man--he was a quiet, well-conducted chap in Reading always. 

Naturally I replied to this letter at once, saying that he had beenmisinformed, that I was not angry and if I could do anything for him Ishould be delighted: I did my best, too, for Lawley. 

Here is his letter of thanks to me for helping him when he came out ofprison. 

Sandwich Hotel, Dieppe. 

MY DEAR FRANK:

Just a line to thank you for your great kindness to me--for the lovelyclothes, and for the generous cheque. 

You have been a real good friend to me--and I shall never forget yourkindness: to remember such a debt as mine to you--a debt of kindfellowship--is a pleasure. 

About our tour--later on let us think about it. My friends have been sokind to me here that I am feeling happy already. 

Yours, OSCAR WILDE. 

If you write to me please do so under cover to R. B. Ross, who is herewith me. 

In the next letter of his which I have kept Oscar is perfectly friendlyagain; he tells me that he is "entirely without money, having receivednothing from his Trustees for months, " and asks me for even £5, adding, "I drift in ridiculous impecuniosity without a sou. "

THE MYSTERY OF PERSONALITY

I transcribe here another letter of Oscar to me from the second yearafter his release to show his interest in all intellectual things andfor a flash of characteristic humour at the expense of the Paris police. The envelope is dated October 13, 1898:--

FromM. Sebastian Melmoth, Hotel d'Alsace, Rue des Beaux-arts, Paris. 

MY DEAR FRANK:

How are you? I read your appreciation of Rodin's "Balzac" with intensestpleasure, and I am looking forward to more Shakespeare--you will ofcourse put all your Shakespearean essays into a book, and, equally ofcourse, I must have a copy. It is a great era in Shakespeareancriticism--the first time that one has looked in the plays not forphilosophy, for there is none, but for the wonder of a greatpersonality--something far better, and far more mysterious than anyphilosophy--it is a great thing that you have done. I remember writingonce in "Intentions" that the more objective a work of art is in form, the more subjective it really is in matter--and that it is only when yougive the poet a mask that he can tell you the truth. But you have shownit fully in the case of the one artist whose personality was supposed tobe a mystery of deep seas, a secret as impenetrable as the secret of themoon. 

Paris is terrible in its heat. I walk in streets of brass, and there isno one here. Even the criminal classes have gone to the seaside, and thegendarmes yawn and regret their enforced idleness. Giving wrongdirections to the English tourists is the only thing that consoles them. 

You were most kind and generous last month in letting me have acheque--it gives me just the margin to live on and to live by. May Ihave it again this month? or has gold flown away from you?

Ever yours, OSCAR. 

THE DEDICATION OF "AN IDEAL HUSBAND"

I received the following letter from Oscar early in 1899 I imagine. Itwas written in the spring after the winter we spent in La Napoule. 

From M. Sebastian Melmoth, Gland, Canton Vaud, Switzerland. 

MY DEAR FRANK:

I am, as you see from above, in Switzerland with M----: a ratherdreadful combination: the villa is pretty, and on the borders of thelake with pretty pines about: on the other side are the mountains ofSavoy and Mont Blanc: we are an hour, by a slow train, from Geneva. ButM----is tedious, and lacks conversation: also he gives me Swiss wine todrink: it is horrible: he occupies himself with small economies, andmean domestic interests, so I suffer very much. _Ennui_ is the enemy. 

I want to know if you will allow me to dedicate to you my next play, "The Ideal Husband"--which Smithers is bringing out for me in the sameform as the others, of which I hope you received your copy. I should somuch like to write your name and a few words on the dedicatory page. 

I look back with joy and regret to the lovely sunlight of the Riviera, and the charming winter you so generously and kindly gave me: it wasmost good of you: how can it ever be forgotten by me. 

Next week a petroleum launch is to arrive here, so that will console mea little, as I love to be on the water: and the Savoy side is starredwith pretty villages and green valleys. 

Of course we won our bet--the phrase on Shelley is in Arnold's prefaceto Byron: but M---- won't pay me! He suffers agony over a franc. It isvery annoying as I have had no money since my arrival here. However Iregard the place as a Swiss Pension--where there is no weekly bill. .. . 

Ever yours, OSCAR. 

I believe I answered; but am not sure. I was naturally delighted to havejust "An Ideal Husband" dedicated to me, because I had suggested theplot of it to Oscar--not that the plot was in any true sense mine. Aninteresting and clever American in Cairo, a Mr. Cope Whitehouse, hadgiven it to me as I tell in this book. The story Whitehouse told may notbe true; but my mind jumped at once to the thought of a story where anEnglish Minister would be confronted with some early sin of that sort. Ihad hardly bettered the story given to me when I related it to Oscar whoused it almost immediately with great effect. Dedicatory words areusually as flattering as epitaphs; those of "An Ideal Husband" run:

 TO

 FRANK HARRIS

 A SLIGHT TRIBUTE TO

 HIS POWER AND DISTINCTION

 AS AN ARTIST

 HIS CHIVALRY AND NOBILITY

 AS A FRIEND

MRS. WILDE'S EPITAPH

(See page 447)

An evil fate seems to have pursued even Oscar's wife. She died in Genoaand was buried in the corner of the Campo Santo set apart forProtestants. This is what one reads on her tombstone:

 CONSTANCE

 DAUGHTER OF THE LATE

 HORATIO LLOYD, Q. C. 

 BORN ---- DIED ----

No reference to her marriage or to the famous man who was the father ofher two sons. 

The irony of chance wills it that the late Horatio Lloyd, Q. C. , had beenmore than suspected of sexual viciousness: cfr. "Criticisms by RobertRoss" at end of Appendix. 

SONNET

(See page 517)

TO OSCAR WILDE

 I dreamed of you last night, I saw your face All radiant and unshadowed of distress, And as of old, in measured tunefulness, I heard your golden voice and marked you trace Under the common thing the hidden grace, And conjure wonder out of emptiness, Till mean things put on Beauty like a dress, And all the world was an enchanted place. 

 And so I knew that it was well with you, And that unprisoned, gloriously free, Across the dark you stretched me out your hand. And all the spite of this besotted crew, (Scrabbling on pillars of Eternity) How small it seems! Love made me understand. 

ALFRED DOUGLAS. 

December 10, 1900. 

Whoever chooses to compare this first sketch of the sonnet of 1900 withthe sonnet as it was published in 1910 will remark three notabledifferences. 

The first sketch was entitled "To Oscar Wilde, " the revision to "TheDead Poet. "

In the early draft, the first line:

"I dreamed of you last night, I saw your face, " has become lessintimate, having been changed into:

"I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face. "

Finally the sextet which in the first sketch was very inferior to therest has now been discarded in favour of six lines which are worthy ofthe octave. The published sonnet is assuredly superior to the firstsketch, superb though that was. 

THE STORY OF "MR. AND MRS. DAVENTRY"

(See page 534)

There has been so much discussion about the play entitled "Mr. And Mrs. Daventry, " and Oscar Wilde's share in it, that I had better set forthhere briefly what happened. 

When I returned to London in the summer of 1899 after buying, as Ithought, all rights in the sketch of the scenario from Oscar, I wrote atonce the second, third and fourth acts of the play, as I had told OscarI would. I sent him what I had written and asked him to write the firstact as he had promised for the £50. 

Some time before this I had seen Mr. Forbes Robertson and Mrs. PatrickCampbell in "Hamlet, " and Mrs. Patrick Campbell's Ophelia had made adeeper impression on me than even the Hamlet of Forbes Robertson. Iwished her to take my play, and as luck would have it, she had just goneinto management on her own account and leased the Royalty Theatre. 

I read her my play one afternoon, and at once she told me she would takeit; but I must write a first act. I told her that I was no good atpreliminary scenes and that Oscar Wilde had promised to write a firstact, which would, of course, enhance the value of the play enormously. 

To my surprise Mrs. Patrick Campbell would not hear of it: "Quiteimpossible, " she said, "a play's not a patchwork quilt; you must writethe first act yourself. "

"I must write to Oscar then, " I replied, "and see whether he hasfinished it already or not. "

Mrs. Campbell insisted that the play, if she was to accept it, must bethe work of one hand. I wrote to Oscar at once, asking him whether hehad written the first act, adding that if he had not written it andwould send me his idea of the scenario, I would write it. I wasoverjoyed to tell him that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had provisionallyaccepted the play. 

To my astonishment Oscar replied in evident ill-temper to say that hecould not write the first act, or the scenario, but at the same time hehoped I would now send him some money for having helped to make my_début_ on the stage. 

I returned to tell Mrs. Campbell my disappointment and to see if she hadany idea of what she wanted in the first act. She was delighted with mynews, and said that all I had to do was to write an act introducing mycharacters, and that I ought, for the sake of contrast, to give her amother. Some impish spirit suggested to me the idea of making a mothermuch younger than her daughter, that is, a very flighty ordinary woman, impulsive and feather-brained, with a mania for attending sales andcollecting odds and ends at bargain prices. Full of this idea I wrotethe first act off hand. 

Mrs. Patrick Campbell did not like it much, and in this, as indeedalways, showed excellent judgment and an extraordinary understanding ofthe requirements of the stage; nevertheless she accepted the play andsettled terms. A little later I went to Leeds, where she was playing, and read the play to her and her "Company. " We discussed the cast, and Isuggested Mr. Kerr to play Mr. Daventry. Mrs. Patrick Campbell jumped atthe idea, and everything was settled. 

I wrote the good news to Oscar, and back came another letter from him, more ill-tempered than the first, saying he had never thought I wouldtake his scenario; I had no right to touch it; but as I had taken it, Imust really pay him something substantial. 

The claim was absurd, but I hated to dispute with him or even appear tobargain. 

I wrote to him that if I made anything out of the play I would send himsome more money. He replied that he was sure my play would be a failure;but I ought to get a good sum down in advance of royalties from Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and at once send him half of it. His letters werechildishly ill-conditioned and unreasonable; but, believing him to be inextreme indigence, I felt too sorry for him even to argue the point. Again and again I had helped him, and it seemed sordid and silly to hurtour old friendship for money. I couldn't believe that he would talk ofmy having done anything that I ought not to have done if we met, so assoon as I could I crossed to Paris to have it out with him. 

To my astonishment I found him obdurate in his wrong-headedness. When Iasked him what he had sold me for the £50 I paid him, he coolly said hedidn't think I was serious, that no man would write a play on anotherman's scenario; it was absurd, impossible--"_C'est ridicule!_" herepeated again and again. When I reminded him that Shakespeare had doneit, he got angry: it was altogether different then--today: "_C'estridicule!_" Tired of going over and over the old ground I pressed him totell me what he wanted. For hours he wouldn't say: then at length hedeclared he ought to have half of all the play fetched, and even thatwouldn't be fair to him, as he was a dramatist and I was not, and Iought not to have touched his scenario and so on, over and over again. 

I returned to my hotel wearied in heart and head by his ridiculousdemands and reiterations. After thrashing the beaten straw to dust onthe following day, I agreed at length to give him another £50 down andanother £50 later. Even then he pretended to be very sorry indeed that Ihad taken what he called "his play, " and assured me in the same breaththat "Mr. And Mrs. Daventry" would be a rank failure: "Plays cannot bewritten by amateurs; plays require knowledge of the stage. It's quiteabsurd of you, Frank, who hardly ever go to the theatre, to think youcan write a successful play straight off. I always loved the theatre, always went to every first night in London, have the stage in my blood, "and so forth and so on. I could not help recalling what he had told meyears before, that when he had to write his first play for GeorgeAlexander, he shut himself up for a fortnight with the most successfulmodern French plays, and so learned his _métier_. 

Next day I returned to London, understanding now something of theunreasonable persistence in begging which had aroused Lord AlfredDouglas' rage. 

As soon as my play was advertised a crowd of people confronted me withclaims I had never expected. Mrs. Brown Potter wrote to me saying thatsome years before she had bought a play from Oscar Wilde which he hadnot delivered, and as she understood that I was bringing it out, shehoped I would give it to her to stage. I replied saying that Oscar hadnot written a word of my play. She wrote again, saying that she had paid£100 for the scenario: would I see Mr. Kyrle Bellew on the matter? I sawthem both a dozen times; but came to no decision. 

While these negotiations were going on, a host of other Richmonds cameinto the field. Horace Sedger had also bought the same scenario, andthen in quick succession it appeared that Tree and Alexander and AdaRehan had also paid for the same privilege. When I wrote to Oscar aboutthis expressing my surprise he replied coolly that he could have gone onselling the play now to French managers, and later to German managers, if I had not interfered: "You have deprived me of a certain income:" washis argument, "and therefore you owe me more than you will ever get fromthe play, which is sure to fall flat. "

A little later Miss Nethersole presented herself, and when I would notyield to her demands, went to Paris, and Oscar wrote to me saying sheought to stage the piece as she would do it splendidly, or at least Ishould repay her the money she had advanced to him. 

This letter showed me that Oscar had not only deceived me, but, for somecause or other, some pricking of vanity I couldn't understand, waswilling to embarrass me as much as possible without any scruple. 

Finally Smithers, the publisher of three of Oscar's books, whom I knewto be a real friend of Oscar, came to me with a still more appealingstory. When Oscar was in Italy, and in absolute need, Smithers got a mannamed Roberts to advance £100 on the scenario. I found that Oscar hadwritten out the whole scenario for him and outlined the characters ofhis drama. This was evidently the completest claim that had yet beenbrought before me: it was also, Smithers proved, the earliest, andSmithers himself was in dire need. I wrote to Oscar that I thoughtSmithers had the best claim because he was the first buyer, andcertainly ought to have something. Oscar replied, begging me not to bea fool: to send him the money and tell Smithers to go to Sheol. Thereupon I told Smithers I could not afford to give him any money atthe moment; but if the play was a success he should have something outof it. 

The play was a success: it was stopped for a week by Queen Victoria'sdeath, in January, and was, I think, the only play that survived thatordeal. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was good enough to allow me to rewrite thefirst act for the fiftieth performance, and it ran, if I rememberrightly, some 130 nights. About the twentieth representation I paidSmithers. 

For the first weeks of the run I was bombarded with letters from Oscar, begging money and demanding money in every tone. He made nothing of thefact that I had already paid him three times the price agreed upon, andpaid Smithers to boot, and lost through his previous sales of thescenario whatever little repute the success of the piece might havebrought me. Nine people out of ten believed that Oscar had written theplay and that I had merely lent my name to the production in order toenable him, as a bankrupt, to receive the money from it. Even men ofletters deceived themselves in this way. George Moore told Bernard Shawthat he recognised Oscar's hand in the writing again and again, thoughShaw himself was far too keen-witted to be so misled. As a matter offact Oscar did not write a word of the play and the characters hesketched for Smithers and Roberts were altogether different from mineand were not known to me when I wrote my story. 

I have set forth the bare facts of the affair here because Oscar managedto half-persuade Ross and Turner and other friends that I owed him moneywhich I would not pay; though Ross had discounted most of hiscomplaints, even before hearing my side. 

Oscar got me over to Paris in September under the pretext that he wasill; but I found him as well as could be, and anxious merely to get moremoney out of me by any means. I put it all down to his poverty. I didnot then know that Ross was giving him £150 a year; that indeed all hisfriends had helped him and were helping him with singular generosity, and I recalled the fact that when he had had money he never showed anymeanness, or any desire to over-reach. Want is a dreadful teacher, and Idid not hold Oscar altogether responsible for his weird attitude to mepersonally. 

OSCAR'S LAST DAYS!

LETTER FROM ROBERT ROSS TO ----

Dec. 14th, 1900. 

On Tuesday, October 9th, I wrote to Oscar, from whom I had not heard forsome time, that I would be in Paris on Thursday, October the 18th, for afew days, when I hoped to see him. On Thursday, October 11th, I got atelegram from him as follows:--"Operated on yesterday--come over as soonas possible. " I wired that I would endeavour to do so. A wire came inresponse, "Terribly weak--please come. " I started on the evening ofTuesday, October 16th. On Wednesday morning I went to see him about10. 30. He was in very good spirits; and though he assured me hissufferings were dreadful, at the same time he shouted with laughter andtold many stories against the doctors and himself. I stayed until 12. 30and returned about 4. 30, when Oscar recounted his grievances about theHarris play. Oscar, of course, had deceived Harris about the wholematter--as far as I could make out the story--Harris wrote the playunder the impression that only Sedger had to be bought off at £100, which Oscar had received in advance for the commission; whereas KyrleBellew, Louis Nethersole, Ada Rehan, and even Smithers, had all givenOscar £100 on different occasions, and all threatened Harris withproceedings--Harris, therefore, only gave Oscar £50 on account, [59] ashe was obliged to square these people first--hence Oscar's grievance. When I pointed out to him that he was in a much better position thanformerly, because Harris, at any rate, would eventually pay off thepeople who had advanced money and that Oscar would eventually getsomething himself, he replied in the characteristic way, "Frank hasdeprived me of my only source of income by taking a play on which Icould always have raised £100. "

I continued to see Oscar every day until I left Paris. Reggie and myselfsometimes dined or lunched in his bedroom, when he was always verytalkative, although he looked very ill. On October 25th, my brotherAleck came to see him, when Oscar was in particularly good form. Hissister-in-law, Mrs. Willie, and her husband, Texeira, were then passingthrough Paris on their honeymoon, and came at the same time. On thisoccasion he said he was "dying above his means" . .. He would neveroutlive the century . .. The English people would not stand him--he wasresponsible for the failure of the Exhibition, the English having goneaway when they saw him there so well-dressed and happy . .. All theFrench people knew this, too, and would not stand him any more. .. . OnOctober the 29th, Oscar got up for the first time at mid-day, and afterdinner in the evening insisted on going out--he assured me that thedoctor had said he might do so and would not listen to any protest. 

I had urged him to get up some days before as the doctor said he mightdo so, but he had hitherto refused. We went to a small café in the LatinQuartier, where he insisted on drinking absinthe. He walked there andback with some difficulty, but seemed fairly well. Only I thought he hadsuddenly aged in face, and remarked to Reggie next day how different helooked when up and dressed. He appeared _comparatively_ well in bed. (Inoticed for the first time that his hair was slightly tinged with grey. I had always remarked that his hair had never altered its colour whilehe was in Reading;[60] it retained its soft brown tone. You mustremember the jests he used to make about it, he always amused thewarders by saying that his hair was perfectly white. ) Next day I was notsurprised to find Oscar suffering with a cold and great pain in his ear;however, Dr. Tucker said he might go out again, and the followingafternoon, a very mild day, we drove in the Bois. Oscar was muchbetter, but complained of giddiness; we returned about 4. 30. On Saturdaymorning, November 3rd, I met the Panseur Hennion (Reggie always calledhim the Libre Penseur), he came every day to dress Oscar's wounds. Heasked me if I was a great friend or knew Oscar's relatives. He assuredme that Oscar's general condition was very serious--that he could notlive more than three or four months unless he altered his way oflife--that I ought to speak to Dr. Tucker, who did not realise Oscar'sserious state--that the ear trouble was not of much importance initself, but a grave symptom. On Sunday morning I saw Dr. Tucker--he is asilly, kind, excellent man; he said Oscar ought to write more--that hewas much better, and that his condition would only become serious whenhe got up and went about in the usual way. I begged him to be frank. Hepromised to ask Oscar if he might talk to me openly on the subject ofOscar's health. I saw him on the Tuesday following by appointment; hewas very vague; and though he endorsed Hennion's view to some extent, said that Oscar was getting well now, though he could not live longunless he stopped drinking. On going to see Oscar later in the day Ifound him very agitated. He said he did not want to know what the doctorhad told me. He said he did not care if he had only a short time to liveand then went off on to the subject of his debts, which I gatheramounted to something over more than £400. [61] He asked me to see thatat all events some of them were paid if I was in a position to do soafter he was dead; he suffered remorse about some of his creditors. Reggie came in shortly afterwards much to my relief. Oscar told us thathe had had a horrible dream the previous night--"that he had beensupping with the dead. " Reggie made a very typical response, "My dearOscar, you were probably the life and soul of the party. " This delightedOscar, who became high-spirited again, almost hysterical. I left feelingrather anxious. That night I wrote to Douglas saying that I wascompelled to leave Paris--that the doctor thought Oscar very ill--that---- ought to pay some of his bills as they worried him very much, andthe matter was retarding his recovery--a great point made by Dr. Tucker. On November 2nd, All Souls' Day, I had gone to Père la Chaise with ----. Oscar was much interested and asked me if I had chosen a place for histomb. He discussed epitaphs in a perfectly light-hearted way, and Inever dreamt he was so near death. 

On Monday, November 12th, I went to the Hotel d'Alsace with Reggie tosay good-bye, as I was leaving for the Riviera next day. It was late inthe evening after dinner. Oscar went all over his financial troubles. Hehad just had a letter from Harris about the Smithers claim, and was muchupset; his speech seemed to me a little thick, but he had been givenmorphia the previous night, and he always drank too much champagneduring the day. He knew I was coming to say good-bye, but paid littleattention when I entered the room, which at the time I thought ratherstrange; he addressed all his observations to Reggie. While we weretalking, the post arrived with a very nice letter from Alfred Douglas, enclosing a cheque. It was partly in response to my letter I think. Oscar wept a little but soon recovered himself. Then we all had afriendly discussion, during which Oscar walked around the room anddeclaimed in rather an excited way. About 10. 30 I got up to go. SuddenlyOscar asked Reggie and the nurse to leave the room for a minute, as hewanted to say good-bye. He rambled at first about his debts in Paris:and then he implored me not to go away, because he felt that a greatchange had come over him during the last few days. I adopted a ratherstern attitude, as I really thought that Oscar was simply hysterical, though I knew that he was genuinely upset at my departure. Suddenly hebroke into a violent sobbing, and said he would never see me againbecause he felt that everything was at an end--this very painfulincident lasted about three-quarters of an hour. 

He talked about various things which I can scarcely repeat here. Thoughit was very harrowing, I really did not attach any importance to myfarewell, and I did not respond to poor Oscar's emotion as I ought tohave done, especially as he said, when I was going out of the room, "Look out for some little cup in the hills near Nice where I can go whenI am better, and where you can come and see me often. " Those were thelast articulate words he ever spoke to me. 

I left for Nice the following evening, November 13th. 

During my absence Reggie went every day to see Oscar, and wrote me shortbulletins every other day. Oscar went out several times with himdriving, and seemed much better. On Tuesday, November 27th, I receivedthe first of Reggie's letters, which I enclose (the others came after Ihad started), and I started back for Paris; I send them because theywill give you a very good idea of how things stood. I had decided thatwhen I had moved my mother to Mentone on the following Friday, I wouldgo to Paris on Saturday, but on the Wednesday evening, at five-thirty, Igot a telegram from Reggie saying, "Almost hopeless. " I just caught theexpress and arrived in Paris at 10. 20 in the morning. Dr. Tucker and Dr. Kleiss, a specialist called in by Reggie, were there. They informed methat Oscar could not live for more than two days. His appearance wasvery painful, he had become quite thin, the flesh was livid, hisbreathing heavy. He was trying to speak. He was conscious that peoplewere in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether heunderstood. He pressed our hands. I then went in search of a priest, andafter great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunn, of the Passionists, who came with me at once and administered Baptism and ExtremeUnction--Oscar could not take the Eucharist. You know I had alwayspromised to bring a priest to Oscar when he was dying, and I felt ratherguilty that I had so often dissuaded him from becoming a Catholic, butyou know my reasons for doing so. I then sent wires to Frank Harris, toHolman (for communicating with Adrian Hope) and to Douglas. Tuckercalled again later and said that Oscar might linger a few days. A _gardemalade_ was requisitioned as the nurse had been rather overworked. 

Terrible offices had to be carried out into which I need not enter. Reggie was a perfect wreck. 

He and I slept at the Hotel d'Alsace that night in a room upstairs. Wewere called twice by the nurse, who thought Oscar was actually dying. About 5. 30 in the morning a complete change came over him, the lines ofthe face altered, and I believe what is called the death rattle began, but I had never heard anything like it before; it sounded like thehorrible turning of a crank, and it never ceased until the end. His eyesdid not respond to the light test any longer. Foam and blood came fromhis mouth, and had to be wiped away by someone standing by him all thetime. At 12 o'clock I went out to get some food, Reggie mounting guard. He went out at 12. 30. From 1 o'clock we did not leave the room; thepainful noise from the throat became louder and louder. Reggie andmyself destroyed letters to keep ourselves from breaking down. The twonurses were out, and the proprietor of the hotel had come up to taketheir place; at 1. 45 the time of his breathing altered. I went to thebedside and held his hand, his pulse began to flutter. He heaved a deepsigh, the only natural one I had heard since I arrived, the limbs seemedto stretch involuntarily, the breathing came fainter; he passed at 10minutes to 2 p. M. Exactly. 

After washing and winding the body, and removing the appalling _débris_which had to be burnt, Reggie and myself and the proprietor started forthe Maine to make the official declaration. There is no use recountingthe tedious experiences which only make me angry to think about. Theexcellent Dupoirier lost his head and complicated matters by making amystery over Oscar's name, though there was a difficulty, as Oscar wasregistered under the name of Melmoth at the hotel, and it is contrary tothe French law to be under an assumed name in your hotel. From 3. 30 till5 p. M. We hung about the Maine and the Commissaire de Police offices. Ithen got angry and insisted on going to Gesling, the undertaker to theEnglish Embassy, to whom Father Cuthbert had recommended me. Aftersettling matters with him I went off to find some nuns to watch thebody. I thought that in Paris of all places this would be quite easy, but it was only after incredible difficulties I got two Franciscansisters. 

Gesling was most intelligent and promised to call at the Hotel d'Alsaceat 8 o'clock next morning. While Reggie stayed at the hotel interviewingjournalists and clamorous creditors, I started with Gesling to seeofficials. We did not part till 1. 30, so you can imagine the formalitiesand oaths and exclamations and signing of papers. Dying in Paris isreally a very difficult and expensive luxury for a foreigner. 

It was in the afternoon the District Doctor called and asked if Oscarhad committed suicide or was murdered. He would not look at the signedcertificates of Kleiss and Tucker. Gesling had warned me the previousevening that owing to the assumed name and Oscar's identity, theauthorities might insist on his body being taken to the Morgue. Ofcourse I was appalled at the prospect, it really seemed the final touchof horror. After examining the body, and, indeed, everybody in thehotel, and after a series of drinks and unseasonable jests, and aliberal fee, the District Doctor consented to sign the permission forburial. Then arrived some other revolting official; he asked how manycollars Oscar had, and the value of his umbrella. (This is quite true, and not a mere exaggeration of mine. ) Then various poets and literarypeople called, Raymond de la Tailhade, Tardieu, Charles Sibleigh, JehanRictus, Robert d'Humieres, George Sinclair, and various English people, who gave assumed names, together with two veiled women. They were allallowed to see the body when they signed their names. .. . 

I am glad to say dear Oscar looked calm and dignified, just as he didwhen he came out of prison, and there was nothing at all horrible aboutthe body after it had been washed. Around his neck was the blessedrosary which you gave me, and on the breast a Franciscan medal given meby one of the nuns, a few flowers placed there by myself and ananonymous friend who had brought some on behalf of the children, thoughI do not suppose the children know that their father is dead. Of coursethere was the usual crucifix, candles and holy water. 

Gesling had advised me to have the remains placed in the coffin at once, as decomposition would begin very rapidly, and at 8. 30 in the eveningthe men came to screw it down. An unsuccessful photograph of Oscar wastaken by Maurice Gilbert at my request, the flashlight did not workproperly. Henri Davray came just before they had put on the lid. He wasvery kind and nice. On Sunday, the next day, Alfred Douglas arrived, andvarious people whom I do not know called. I expect most of them werejournalists. On Monday morning at 9 o'clock, the funeral started fromthe hotel--we all walked to the Church of St. Germain des Près behindthe hearse--Alfred Douglas, Reggie Turner and myself, Dupoirier, theproprietor of the hotel, Henri the nurse, and Jules, the servant of thehotel, Dr. Hennion and Maurice Gilbert, together with two strangers whomI did not know. After a low mass, said by one of the vicaires at thealtar behind the sanctuary, part of the burial office was read by FatherCuthbert. The Suisse told me that there were fifty-six peoplepresent--there were five ladies in deep mourning--I had ordered threecoaches only, as I had sent out no official notices, being anxious tokeep the funeral quiet. The first coach contained Father Cuthbert andthe acolyte; the second Alfred Douglas, Turner, the proprietor of thehotel, and myself; the third contained Madame Stuart Merrill, Paul Fort, Henri Davray and Sar Luis; a cab followed containing strangers unknownto me. The drive took one hour and a half; the grave is at Bagneux, in atemporary concession hired in my name--when I am able I shall purchaseground elsewhere at Père la Chaise for choice. I have not yet decidedwhat to do, or the nature of the monument. There were altogethertwenty-four wreaths of flowers; some were sent anonymously. Theproprietor of the hotel supplied a pathetic bead trophy, inscribed, "Amon locataire, " and there was another of the same kind from "The servicede l'Hotel, " the remaining twenty-two were, of course, of real flowers. Wreaths came from, or at the request of, the following: Alfred Douglas, More Adey, Reginald Turner, Miss Schuster, Arthur Clifton, the Mercurede France, Louis Wilkinson, Harold Mellor, Mr. And Mrs. Texiera deMattos, Maurice Gilbert, and Dr. Tucker. At the head of the coffin Iplaced a wreath of laurels inscribed, "A tribute to his literaryachievements and distinction. " I tied inside the wreath the followingnames of those who had shown kindness to him during or after hisimprisonment, "Arthur Humphreys, Max Beerbohm, Arthur Clifton, Ricketts, Shannon, Conder, Rothenstein, Dal Young, Mrs. Leverson, More Adey, Alfred Douglas, Reginald Turner, Frank Harris, Louis Wilkinson, Mellor, Miss Schuster, Rowland Strong, " and by special request a friend whowished to be known as "C. B. "

I can scarcely speak in moderation of the magnanimity, humanity andcharity of John Dupoirier, the proprietor of the Hotel d'Alsace. Justbefore I left Paris Oscar told me he owed him over £190. From the dayOscar was laid up he never said anything about it. He never mentionedthe subject to me until after Oscar's death, and then I started thesubject. He was present at Oscar's operation, and attended to himpersonally every morning. He paid himself for luxuries and necessitiesordered by the doctor or by Oscar out of his own pocket. I hope that---- or ---- will at any rate pay him the money still owing. Dr. Tuckeris also owed a large sum of money. He was most kind and attentive, although I think he entirely misunderstood Oscar's case. 

Reggie Turner had the worst time of all in many ways--he experienced allthe horrible uncertainty and the appalling responsibility of which hedid not know the extent. It will always be a source of satisfaction tothose who were fond of Oscar, that he had someone like Reggie near himduring his last days while he was articulate and sensible of kindnessand attention. .. . 

ROBERT ROSS. 

CRITICISMS

BY ROBERT ROSS

Vol. I. Page 80 Line 3. I demur very much to your statement in thisparagraph. Wilde was too much of a student of Greek to have learnedanything about controversy from Whistler. No doubt Whistler was morenimble and more naturally gifted with the power of repartee, but whenWilde indulged in controversy with his critics, whether he got the bestof it or not, he never borrowed the Whistlerian method. Cf. Hiscontroversy with Henley over Dorian Gray. 

Then whatever you may think of Ruskin, Wilde learnt a great deal aboutthe History and Philosophy of Art from him. He learned more from Paterand he was the friend and intimate of Burne-Jones long before he knewWhistler. I quite agree with your remark that he had "no joy inconflict" and no doubt he had little or no knowledge of the technique ofArt in the modern expert's sense. 

[There never was a greater master of controversy than Whistler, and Ibelieve Wilde borrowed his method of making fun of the adversary. RobertRoss's second point is rather controversial. Shaw agrees with me thatWilde never knew anything really of music or of painting and neither thehistory nor the so-called philosophy of art makes one a connoisseur ofcontemporary masters. F. H. ]

Page 94. Last line. For "happy candle" read "Happy Lamp. " It was at theperiod when oil lamps were put in the middle of the dinner table justbefore the general introduction of electric light; by putting "candle"you lose the period. Cf. Du Maurier's pictures of dinner parties in_Punch_. 

Page 115. I venture to think that you should state that Wilde at the endof his story of 'Mr. W. H. ' definitely says that the theory is allnonsense. It always appeared to me a semi-satire of Shakespeareancommentary. I remember Wilde saying to me after it was published thathis next Shakespearean book would be a discussion as to whether thecommentators on Hamlet were mad or only pretending to be. I think youtake Wilde's phantasy too seriously but I am not disputing whether youare right or wrong in your opinion of it; but it strikes me as a littlesolemn when on Page 116 you say that the 'whole theory is completelymistaken'; but you are quite right when you say that it did Wilde agreat deal of harm. [Ross does not seem to realise that if the theorywere merely fantastic the public might be excused for condemning Oscarfor playing with such a subject. As a matter of fact I remember Oscardefending the theory to me years later with all earnestness: that's whyI stated my opinion of it. F. H. ]

Page 142 Line 19. What Wilde said in front of the curtain was: "I haveenjoyed this evening immensely. "

[I seem to remember that Wilde said this; my note was written after adinner a day or two later when Oscar acted the whole scene over againand probably elaborated his effect. I give the elaboration as mostcharacteristic. F. H. ]

Vol. II. Page 357 Line 3. Major Nelson was the name of the Governor atReading prison. He was one of the most charming men I ever came across. I think he was a little hurt by the "Ballad of Reading Gaol, " which hefancied rather reflected on him though Major Isaacson was the Governorat the time the soldier was executed. Isaacson was a perfect monster. Wilde sent Nelson copies of his books, "The Ideal Husband" and "TheImportance of Being Earnest, " which were published as you remember afterthe release, and Nelson acknowledged them in a most delightful way. Heis dead now. 

[Major Isaacson was the governor who boasted to me that he was knockingthe nonsense out of Wilde; he seemed to me almost inhuman. My report gothim relieved and Nelson appointed in his stead. Nelson was an idealgovernor. F. H. ]

Page 387. In the First Edition of the "Ballad of Reading Gaol" issued byMethuen I have given the original draft of the poem which was in myhands in September 1897, long before Wilde rejoined Douglas. I will sendyou a copy of it if you like, but it is much more likely to reach you ifyou order it through Putnam's in New York as they are Methuen's agents. I would like you to see it because it fortifies your opinion aboutDouglas' ridiculous contention; though I could explode the whole thingby Wilde's letters to myself from Berneval. Certain verses were indeedadded at Naples. I do not know what you will think, but to me they provethe mental decline due to the atmosphere and life that Wilde was leadingat the time. Let us be just and say that perhaps Douglas assisted morethan he was conscious of in their composition. To me they are terriblypoor stuff, but then, unlike yourself, I am a heretic about the Ballad. 

Page 411. In fairness to Gide: Gide is describing Wilde after he hadcome back from Naples in the year 1898, not in 1897, when he had justcome out of prison. 

Appendix Page 438 Line 20. Forgive me if I say it, but I think yourmethod of sneering at Curzon unworthy of Frank Harris. Sneer by allmeans; but not in that particular way. 

[Robert Ross is mistaken here: no sneer was intended. I added Curzon'stitle to avoid giving myself the air of an intimate. F. H. ]

Page 488 Line 17. You really are wrong about Mellor's admiration forWilde. He liked his society but loathed his writing. I was quite angryin 1900 when Mellor came to see me at Mentone (after Wilde's death, ofcourse), when he said he could never see any merit whatever in Wilde'splays or books. However the point is a small one. 

Page 490 Line 6. The only thing I can claim to have invented inconnection with Wilde were the two titles "De Profundis" and "TheBallad of Reading Gaol, " for which let me say I can produce documentaryevidence. The publication of "De Profundis" was delayed for a month in1905 because I could not decide on what to call it. It happened to catchon but I do not think it a very good title. 

Page 555 Line 18. Do you happen to have compared Douglas' translation ofSalome in Lane's First edition (with Beardsley's illustrations) withLane's Second edition (with Beardsley's illustrations) or Lane's littleeditions (without Beardsley's illustrations)? Or have you ever comparedthe aforesaid First edition with the original? Douglas' translationomits a great deal of the text and is actually wrong as a rendering ofthe text in many cases. I have had this out with a good many people. Ibelieve Douglas is to this day sublimely unconscious that his text, ofwhich there were never more than 500 copies issued in England, has beenentirely scrapped; his name at my instance was removed from the currentissues for the very good reason that the new translation is not his. Butthis is merely an observation not a correction. 

[I talked this matter over with Douglas more than once. He did not knowFrench well; but he could understand it and he was a rarely goodtranslator as his version of a Baudelaire sonnet shows. In any disputeas to the value of a word or phrase I should prefer his opinion toOscar's. But Ross is doubtless right on this point. F. H. ]

Appendix Page 587. Your memory is at fault here. The charge againstHoratio Lloyd was of a normal kind. It was for exposing himself tonursemaids in the gardens of the Temple. 

[I have corrected this as indeed I have always used Ross's correctionson matters of fact. F. H. ]

Page 596 Line 13. I think there ought to be a capital "E" in exhibitionto emphasise that it is the 1900 Exhibition in Paris. 

THE SOUL OF MAN UNDER SOCIALISM

When I was editing "The Fortnightly Review, " Oscar Wilde wrote for me"The Soul of Man Under Socialism. " On reading it then it seemed to methat he knew very little about Socialism and I disliked his airy way ofdealing with a religion he hadn't taken the trouble to fathom. The essaynow appears to me in a somewhat different light. Oscar had no deepunderstanding of Socialism, it is true, much less of the fact that in ahealthy body corporate socialism or co-operation would govern all publicutilities and public services while the individual would be left inpossession of all such industries as his activity can control. 

But Oscar's genius was such that as soon as he had stated one side ofthe problem he felt that the other side had to be considered and so weget from him if not the ideal of an ordered state at least _aperçus_ ofastounding truth and value. 

For example he writes: "Socialism . .. By converting private propertyinto public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, willrestore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthyorganism, and insure the material well-being of each member of thecommunity. "

Then comes the return on himself: "But for the full development of Life. .. Something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism. "

And the ideal is always implicit: "Private property has ledIndividualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. "

Humor too is never far away: "Only one class thinks more about moneythan the rich and that is the poor. "

His short stay in the United States also benefited him. .. . "Democracymeans simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. "

Taken all in all a provocative delightful essay which like _Salome_ inthe æsthetic field marks the end of his _Lehrjahre_ and the beginning ofhis work as a master. 

A LAST WORD

In the couple of years that have elapsed since the first edition of thisbook was published, I have received many letters from readers asking forinformation about Wilde which I have omitted to give. I have beenthreatened with prosecution and must not speak plainly; but somethingmay be said in answer to those who contend that Oscar might have broughtforward weightier arguments in his defence than are to be found inChapter XXIV. As a matter of fact I have made him more persuasive thanhe was. When Oscar declared (as recorded on page 496) that his weaknesswas "consistent with the highest ideal of humanity if not acharacteristic of it, " I asked him: "would he make the same defence forthe Lesbians?" He turned aside showing the utmost disgust in face andwords, thus in my opinion giving his whole case away. 

He could have made a better defence. He might have said that as we ofteneat or drink or smoke for pleasure, so we may indulge in othersensualities. If he had argued that his sin was comparatively venial andso personal-peculiar that it carried with it no temptation to the normalman, I should not have disputed his point. 

Moreover, love at its highest is independent of sex and sensuality. Since Luther we have been living in a centrifugal movement, in a wildindividualism where all ties of love and affection have been loosened, and now that the centripetal movement has come into power we shall findthat in another fifty years or so friendship and love will win again tohonor and affinities of all sorts will proclaim themselves without shameand without fear. In this sense Oscar might have regarded himself as aforerunner and not as a survival or "sport. " And it may well be thatsome instinctive feeling of this sort was at the back of his mind thoughtoo vague to be formulated in words. For even in our dispute (see Page500) he pleaded that the world was becoming more tolerant, which, onehopes, is true. To become more tolerant of the faults of others is thefirst lesson in the religion of Humanity. 

_The End. _

_A letter from Lord Alfred Douglas to Oscar Wilde that I reproduce herespeaks for itself and settles once for all, I imagine, the question oftheir relations. Had Lord Alfred Douglas not denied the truth and posedas Oscar Wilde's patron, I should never have published this letterthough it was given to me to establish the truth. This letter waswritten between Oscar's first and second trial; ten days later OscarWilde was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor. _

_FRANK HARRIS. _

HOTEL DES DEUX MONDES22, Avenue de l'Opera, 22PARISWednesday, May 15, 1895. 

My darling Oscar:

Have just arrived here. 

It seems too dreadful to be here without you, but I hope you will joinme next week. Dieppe was too awful for anything; it is the mostdepressing place in the world, even Petits Chevaux was not to be had asthe Casino was closed. They are very nice here, and I can stay as longas I like without paying my bill which is a good thing, as I am quitepenniless. 

The proprietor is very nice and most sympathetic; he asked after you atonce and expressed his regret and indignation at the treatment you hadreceived. I shall have to send this by a cab to the Gare du Nord tocatch the post as I want you to get it first post to-morrow. 

I am going to see if I can find Robert Sherard to-morrow if he is inParis. 

Charlie is with me and sends you his best love. 

I had a long letter from More (Adey) this morning about you. Do keep upyour spirits, my dearest darling. I continue to think of you day andnight and I send you all my love. 

I am always your own loving and devoted boy. 

BOSIE. 

_This letter now published for the first time is the most characteristicI received from Oscar Wilde in the years after his imprisonment. Itdates I think from the winter of 1897, say some eight months after hisrelease. F. H. _

HOTEL DE NICERue des Beaux ArtsPARIS

My dear Frank:

I cannot express to you how deeply touched I am by your letter--it is_une vraie poignée de main_. I simply long to see you and to come againin contact with your strong sane wonderful personality. 

I cannot understand about the poem (The Ballad of Reading Gaol) mypublisher tells me that, as I had begged him to do, he sent the two_first_ copies to the "Saturday" and the "Chronicle"--and he also tellsme that Arthur Symons told him he had written especially to you to askyou to allow him to do a _signed_ article. 

I suppose publishers are untrustworthy. They certainly always look it. Ihope some notice will appear, as your paper, or rather yourself, is agreat force in London and when you speak men listen. 

I of course feel that the poem is too autobiographical and that realexperience are alien things that should never influence one, but it waswrung out of me, a cry of pain, the cry of Marsyas, not the song ofApollo. Still, there are some good things in it. I feel as if I had madea sonnet out of skilly, and that is something. 

When you return from Monte Carlo please let me know. I long to dine withyou. 

As regards a comedy, my dear Frank, I have lost the mainspring of lifeand art--_la joie de vivre_--it is dreadful. I have pleasures andpassions, but the joy of life is gone. I am going under, the Morgueyawns for me. I go and look at my zinc bed there. After all I had awonderful life, which is, I fear, over. But I must dine once with youfirst. 

Ever yours, OSCAR WILDE. 

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Oscar told me this story; but as it only concerns Lord AlfredDouglas, and throws no new light on Oscar's character, I don't use it. 

[40] This is extravagant condemnation of Lord Alfred Douglas' want ofeducation; for he certainly knew a great deal about the poetic art eventhen and he has since acquired a very considerable knowledge of"Elizabethan Song. "

[41] Whoever wishes to understand this bitter allusion should read hisfather's letter to Lord Alfred Douglas transcribed in the first volume. The Marquis of Queensberry doesn't hesitate to hint why his son was"sent down" from Oxford. 

[42] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross. "

[43] Oscar is not flattering his friend in this: Lord Alfred Douglas haswritten two or three sonnets which rank among the best in the language. 

[44] This statement--more than half true--is Oscar Wilde's _Apologia_and justification. 

[45] This is, I believe, true and the explanation that follows isprobably true also. 

[46] Baccarat is not played in the Casino: _roulette_ and _trente etquarante_ are the games: roulette was Lord Alfred Douglas' favourite. 

[47] This is a confession almost as much as an accusation. 

[48] Oscar here crosses the _t's_ and dots the _i's_ of his charge. 

[49] The previous accusation repeated, with bitterest sarcasm. 

[50] Lord Alfred Douglas is well above the middle height: he holdshimself badly but is fully five feet nine inches in height. 

[51] The old accusation. 

[52] Mr. Beerbohm Tree. 

[53] The very truth, it seems to me. 

[54] Proving another guilty would not have exculpated Oscar. Readers ofmy book will remember that I urged Oscar to tell the truth and how heanswered me. 

[55] As will be seen from a letter of Oscar Wilde which I reproducelater, I supplied the clothes. 

[56] His letter was merely an acknowledgment that he had received theclothes and cheque and was grateful. I saw nothing in it to answer as hehad not even mentioned the driving tour. 

[57] I felt hurt that he dropped the idea without giving me any reasonor even letting me know his change of purpose. 

[58] I think this was true; though it had never struck me till I readthis letter. Later, in order to excuse himself for not working, hemagnified the effect on his health of prison life. A year after hisrelease I think he had as large a reserve of nervous energy as ever. 

[59] Fifty pounds was all Oscar asked me: the whole sum agreed upon. Asa matter of fact I gave him fifty pounds more before leaving Paris. Ididn't then know that he had ever told the scenario to anyone else, muchless sold it; though I ought perhaps to have guessed it. --F. H. 

[60] I (Frank Harris) noticed at Reading that his hair was getting greyin front and at the sides; but when we met later the grey haddisappeared. I thought he used some dye. I only mention this to show howtwo good witnesses can differ on a plain matter of fact. 

[61] Ross found afterwards that they amounted to £620. 

MEMORIES OF OSCAR WILDE

BY G. BERNARD SHAW

Copyright, 1918, BY BERNARD SHAW

INTRODUCTION

George Bernard Shaw ordered a special copy of this book of mine:"Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions, " as soon as it was announced. I sent it to him and asked him to write me his opinion of the book. 

In due course I received the following MSS. From him in which he tellsme what he thinks of my work:--"the best life of Wilde, . .. Wilde'smemory will have to stand or fall by it"; and then goes on to relateall his own meetings with Wilde, the impressions they made upon himand his judgment of Wilde as a writer and as a man. 

He has given himself this labor, he says, in order that I may publishhis views in the Appendix to my book if I think fit--an example, notonly of Shaw's sympathy and generosity, but of his light way oftreating his own kindness. 

I am delighted to be able to put Shaw's considered judgment of Wildebeside my own for the benefit of my readers. For if there had beenanything I had misseen or misjudged in Wilde, or any prominent traitof his character I had failed to note, the sin, whether of omission orcommission, could scarcely have escaped this other pair of keen eyes. Now indeed this biography of Wilde may be regarded as definitive. 

Shaw says his judgment of Wilde is severer than mine--"far sterner, "are his words; but I am not sure that this is an exact estimate. 

While Shaw accentuates Wilde's snobbishness, he discounts his "Irishcharm, " and though he praises highly his gifts as dramatist andstory-teller he lays little stress on his genuine kindness of natureand the courteous smiling ways which made him so incomparable acompanion and intimate. 

On the other hand he excuses Wilde's perversion as pathological, ashereditary "giantism, " and so lightens the darkest shadows just as hehas toned down the lights. 

I never saw anything abnormal in Oscar Wilde either in body or soulsave an extravagant sensuality and an absolute adoration of beauty andcomeliness; and so, with his own confessions and practises before me, I had to block him in, to use painters' jargon, with black shadows, and was delighted to find high lights to balance them--lights ofcourtesies, graces and unselfish kindness of heart. 

On the whole I think our two pictures are very much alike and I amsure a good many readers will be almost as grateful to Shaw for hiscollaboration and corroboration as I am. 

POSTSCRIPT

Since writing this foreword I have received the proof of hiscontribution which I had sent to Shaw. He has made some slightcorrections in the text which, of course, have been carried out, andsome comments besides on my notes as Editor. These, too, I havenaturally wished to use and so, to avoid confusion, have inserted themin italics and with his initials. I hope the sequence will be clear tothe reader. 

MY MEMORIES OF OSCAR WILDE

BY BERNARD SHAW

MY DEAR HARRIS:--

"I have an interesting letter of yours to answer; but when you ask meto exchange biographies, you take an unfair advantage of the changesof scene and bustling movement of your own adventures. Myautobiography would be like my best plays, fearfully long, and notdivided into acts. Just consider this life of Wilde which you havejust sent me, and which I finished ten minutes ago after putting asideeverything else to read it at one stroke. 

"Why was Wilde so good a subject for a biography that none of theprevious attempts which you have just wiped out are bad? Just becausehis stupendous laziness simplified his life almost as if he knewinstinctively that there must be no episodes to spoil the greatsituation at the end of the last act but one. It was a well made lifein the Scribe sense. It was as simple as the life of Des Grieux, ManonLescaut's lover; and it beat that by omitting Manon and making DesGrieux his own lover and his own hero. 

"Des Grieux was a worthless rascal by all conventional standards; andwe forgive him everything. We think we forgive him because he wasunselfish and loved greatly. Oscar seems to have said: 'I will lovenobody: I will be utterly selfish; and I will be not merely a rascalbut a monster; and you shall forgive me everything. In other words, Iwill reduce your standards to absurdity, not by writing them down, though I could do that so well--in fact, _have_ done it--but byactually living them down and dying them down. '

"However, I mustn't start writing a book to you about Wilde: I mustjust tumble a few things together and tell you them. To take things inthe order of your book, I can remember only one occasion on which Isaw Sir William Wilde, who, by the way, operated on my father tocorrect a squint, and overdid the correction so much that my fathersquinted the other way all the rest of his life. To this day I nevernotice a squint: it is as normal to me as a nose or a tall hat. 

"I was a boy at a concert in the Antient Concert Rooms in BrunswickStreet in Dublin. Everybody was in evening dress; and--unless I ammixing up this concert with another (in which case I doubt if theWildes would have been present)--the Lord Lieutenant was there withhis blue waistcoated courtiers. Wilde was dressed in snuffy brown; andas he had the sort of skin that never looks clean, he produced adramatic effect beside Lady Wilde (in full fig) of being, likeFrederick the Great, Beyond Soap and Water, as his Nietzschean son wasbeyond Good and Evil. He was currently reported to have a family inevery farmhouse; and the wonder was that Lady Wilde didn'tmind--evidently a tradition from the Travers case, which I did notknow about until I read your account, as I was only eight in 1864. 

"Lady Wilde was nice to me in London during the desperate days betweenmy arrival in 1876 and my first earning of an income by my pen in1885, or rather until, a few years earlier, I threw myself intoSocialism and cut myself contemptuously loose from everything of whichher at-homes--themselves desperate affairs enough, as you saw foryourself--were part. I was at two or three of them; and I once dinedwith her in company with an ex-tragedy queen named Miss Glynn, who, having no visible external ears, reared a head like a turnip. LadyWilde talked about Schopenhauer; and Miss Glynn told me that Gladstoneformed his oratorical style on Charles Kean. 

"I ask myself where and how I came across Lady Wilde; for we had nosocial relations in the Dublin days. The explanation must be that mysister, then a very attractive girl who sang beautifully, had met andmade some sort of innocent conquest of both Oscar and Willie. I metOscar once at one of the at-homes; and he came and spoke to me with anevident intention of being specially kind to me. We put each other outfrightfully; and this odd difficulty persisted between us to the verylast, even when we were no longer mere boyish novices and had becomemen of the world with plenty of skill in social intercourse. I saw himvery seldom, as I avoided literary and artistic society like theplague, and refused the few invitations I received to go into societywith burlesque ferocity, so as to keep out of it without offendingpeople past their willingness to indulge me as a privileged lunatic. 

"The last time I saw him was at that tragic luncheon of yours at theCafé Royal; and I am quite sure our total of meetings from first tolast did not exceed twelve, and may not have exceeded six. 

"I definitely recollect six: (1) At the at-home aforesaid. (2) AtMacmurdo's house in Fitzroy Street in the days of the Century Guildand its paper '_The Hobby Horse_. ' (3) At a meeting somewhere inWestminster at which I delivered an address on Socialism, and at whichOscar turned up and spoke. Robert Ross surprised me greatly by tellingme, long after Oscar's death, that it was this address of mine thatmoved Oscar to try his hand at a similar feat by writing 'The Soul ofMan Under Socialism. ' (4) A chance meeting near the stage door of theHaymarket Theatre, at which our queer shyness of one another made ourresolutely cordial and appreciative conversation so difficult that ourfinal laugh and shake-hands was almost a reciprocal confession. (5) Areally pleasant afternoon we spent together on catching one another ina place where our presence was an absurdity. It was some exhibition inChelsea: a naval commemoration, where there was a replica of Nelson'sVictory and a set of P. & O. Cabins which made one seasick by mereassociation of ideas. I don't know why I went or why Wilde went; butwe did; and the question what the devil we were doing in that galleytickled us both. It was my sole experience of Oscar's wonderful giftas a raconteur. I remember particularly an amazingly elaborate storywhich you have no doubt heard from him: an example of the cumulationof a single effect, as in Mark Twain's story of the man who waspersuaded to put lightning conductor after lightning conductor atevery possible point on his roof until a thunderstorm came and all thelightning in the heavens went for his house and wiped it out. 

"Oscar's much more carefully and elegantly worked out story was of ayoung man who invented a theatre stall which economized space byingenious contrivances which were all described. A friend of hisinvited twenty millionaires to meet him at dinner so that he mightinterest them in the invention. The young man convinced themcompletely by his demonstration of the saving in a theatre holding, inordinary seats, six hundred people, leaving them eager and ready tomake his fortune. Unfortunately he went on to calculate the annualsaving in all the theatres of the world; then in all the churches ofthe world; then in all the legislatures; estimating finally theincidental and moral and religious effects of the invention until atthe end of an hour he had estimated a profit of several thousandmillions: the climax of course being that the millionaires foldedtheir tents and silently stole away, leaving the ruined inventor amarked man for life. 

"Wilde and I got on extraordinarily well on this occasion. I had notto talk myself, but to listen to a man telling me stories better thanI could have told them. We did not refer to Art, about which, excluding literature from the definition, he knew only what could bepicked up by reading about it. He was in a tweed suit and low hat likemyself, and had been detected and had detected me in the act ofclandestinely spending a happy day at Rosherville Gardens instead ofpontificating in his frock coat and so forth. And he had an audienceon whom not one of his subtlest effects was lost. And so for once ourmeeting was a success; and I understood why Morris, when he was dyingslowly, enjoyed a visit from Wilde more than from anybody else, as Iunderstand why you say in your book that you would rather have Wildeback than any friend you have ever talked to, even though he wasincapable of friendship, though not of the most touching kindness[1]on occasion. 

[Footnote 1: Excellent analysis. [Ed. ]]

"Our sixth meeting, the only other one I can remember, was the one atthe Café Royal. On that occasion he was not too preoccupied with hisdanger to be disgusted with me because I, who had praised his firstplays handsomely, had turned traitor over 'The Importance of BeingEarnest. ' Clever as it was, it was his first really heartless play. Inthe others the chivalry of the eighteenth century Irishman and theromance of the disciple of Théophile Gautier (Oscar was reallyold-fashioned in the Irish way, except as a critic of morals) not onlygave a certain kindness and gallantry to the serious passages and tothe handling of the women, but provided that proximity of emotionwithout which laughter, however irresistible, is destructive andsinister. In 'The Importance of Being Earnest' this had vanished; andthe play, though extremely funny, was essentially hateful. I had noidea that Oscar was going to the dogs, and that this represented areal degeneracy produced by his debaucheries. I thought he was stilldeveloping; and I hazarded the unhappy guess that 'The Importance ofBeing Earnest' was in idea a young work written or projected longbefore under the influence of Gilbert and furbished up for Alexanderas a potboiler. At the Café Royal that day I calmly asked him whetherI was not right. He indignantly repudiated my guess, and said loftily(the only time he ever tried on me the attitude he took to John Grayand his more abject disciples) that he was disappointed in me. Isuppose I said, 'Then what on earth has happened to you?' but Irecollect nothing more on that subject except that we did not quarrelover it. 

"When he was sentenced I spent a railway journey on a Socialistlecturing excursion to the North drafting a petition for his release. After that I met Willie Wilde at a theatre which I think must havebeen the Duke of York's, because I connect it vaguely with St. Martin's Lane. I spoke to him about the petition, asking him whetheranything of the sort was being done, and warning him that though I andStewart Headlam would sign it, that would be no use, as we were twonotorious cranks, and our names would by themselves reduce thepetition to absurdity and do Oscar more harm than good. Williecordially agreed, and added, with maudlin pathos and an inconceivablewant of tact: 'Oscar was NOT a man of bad character: youcould have trusted him with a woman anywhere. ' He convinced me, as youdiscovered later, that signatures would not be obtainable; so thepetition project dropped; and I don't know what became of my draft. 

"When Wilde was in Paris during his last phase I made a point ofsending him inscribed copies of all my books as they came out; and hedid the same to me. 

"In writing about Wilde and Whistler, in the days when they weretreated as witty triflers, and called Oscar and Jimmy in print, Ialways made a point of taking them seriously and with scrupulous goodmanners. Wilde on his part also made a point of recognizing me as aman of distinction by his manner, and repudiating the current estimateof me as a mere jester. This was not the usual reciprocal-admirationtrick: I believe he was sincere, and felt indignant at what he thoughtwas a vulgar underestimate of me; and I had the same feeling abouthim. My impulse to rally to him in his misfortune, and my disgust at'the man Wilde' scurrilities of the newspapers, was irresistible: Idon't quite know why; for my charity to his perversion, and myrecognition of the fact that it does not imply any general depravityor coarseness of character, came to me through reading andobservation, not through sympathy. 

"I have all the normal violent repugnance to homosexuality--if it isreally normal, which nowadays one is sometimes provoked to doubt. 

"Also, I was in no way predisposed to like him: he was myfellow-townsman, and a very prime specimen of the sort offellow-townsman I most loathed: to wit, the Dublin snob. His Irishcharm, potent with Englishmen, did not exist for me; and on the wholeit may be claimed for him that he got no regard from me that he didnot earn. 

"What first established a friendly feeling in me was, unexpectedlyenough, the affair of the Chicago anarchists, whose Homer youconstituted yourself by '_The Bomb_. ' I tried to get some literary menin London, all heroic rebels and skeptics on paper, to sign a memorialasking for the reprieve of these unfortunate men. The only signature Igot was Oscar's. It was a completely disinterested act on his part;and it secured my distinguished consideration for him for the rest ofhis life. 

"To return for a moment to Lady Wilde. You know that there is adisease called giantism, caused by 'a certain morbid process in thesphenoid bone of the skull--viz. , an excessive development of theanterior lobe of the pituitary body' (this is from the nearestencyclopedia). 'When this condition does not become active until afterthe age of twenty-five, by which time the long bones are consolidated, the result is acromegaly, which chiefly manifests itself in anenlargement of the hands and feet. ' I never saw Lady Wilde's feet; buther hands were enormous, and never went straight to their aim whenthey grasped anything, but minced about, feeling for it. And thegigantic splaying of her palm was reproduced in her lumbar region. 

"Now Oscar was an overgrown man, with something not quite normal abouthis bigness--something that made Lady Colin Campbell, who hated him, describe him as 'that great white caterpillar. ' You yourself describethe disagreeable impression he made on you physically, in spite of hisfine eyes and style. Well, I have always maintained that Oscar was agiant in the pathological sense, and that this explains a good deal ofhis weakness. 

"I think you have affectionately underrated his snobbery, mentioningonly the pardonable and indeed justifiable side of it; the love offine names and distinguished associations and luxury and goodmanners. [2] You say repeatedly, and _on certain planes_, truly, thathe was not bitter and did not use his tongue to wound people. But thisis not true on the snobbish plane. On one occasion he wrote about T. P. O'Connor with deliberate, studied, wounding insolence, with hisMerrion Square Protestant pretentiousness in full cry against theCatholic. He repeatedly declaimed against the vulgarity of the Britishjournalist, not as you or I might, but as an expression of the odiousclass feeling that is itself the vilest vulgarity. He made the mistakeof not knowing his place. He objected to be addressed as Wilde, declaring that he was Oscar to his intimates and Mr. Wilde to others, quite unconscious of the fact that he was imposing on the men withwhom, as a critic and journalist, he had to live and work, thealternative of granting him an intimacy he had no right to ask or adeference to which he had no claim. The vulgar hated him for snubbingthem; and the valiant men damned his impudence and cut him. Thus hewas left with a band of devoted satellites on the one hand, and adining-out connection on the other, with here and there a man oftalent and personality enough to command his respect, but utterlywithout that fortifying body of acquaintance among plain men in whicha man must move as himself a plain man, and be Smith and Jones andWilde and Shaw and Harris instead of Bosie and Robbie and Oscar andMister. This is the sort of folly that does not last forever in a manof Wilde's ability; but it lasted long enough to prevent Oscar layingany solid social foundations. [3]

[Footnote 2: I had touched on the evil side of his snobbery, Ithought, by saying that it was only famous actresses and great ladiesthat he ever talked about, and in telling how he loved to speak of thegreat houses such as Clumber to which he had been invited, and by halfa dozen other hints scattered through my book. I had attacked Englishsnobbery so strenuously in my book on "The Man Shakespeare, " hadresented its influence on the finest English intelligence so bitterly, that I thought if I again laid stress on it in Wilde, people wouldthink I was crazy on the subject. But he was a snob, both by natureand training, and I understand by snob what Shaw evidently understandsby it here. ]

[Footnote 3: The reason that Oscar, snobbish as he was, and admirer ofEngland and the English as he was, could not lay any solid socialfoundations in England was, in my opinion, his intellectual interestsand his intellectual superiority to the men he met. No one with a finemind devoted to things of the spirit is capable of laying solid socialfoundations in England. Shaw, too, has no solid social foundations inthat country. 

_This passing shot at English society serves it right. Yet able menhave found niches in London. Where was Oscar's?--G. B. S. _]

"Another difficulty I have already hinted at. Wilde started as anapostle of Art; and in that capacity he was a humbug. The notion thata Portora boy, passed on to T. C. D. And thence to Oxford and spendinghis vacations in Dublin, could without special circumstances have anygenuine intimacy with music and painting, is to me ridiculous. [4]When Wilde was at Portora, I was at home in a house where importantmusical works, including several typical masterpieces, were beingrehearsed from the point of blank amateur ignorance up to fitness forpublic performance. I could whistle them from the first bar to thelast as a butcher's boy whistles music hall songs, before I wastwelve. The toleration of popular music--Strauss's waltzes, forinstance--was to me positively a painful acquirement, a sort ofrepublican duty. 

[Footnote 4: I had already marked it down to put in this popularedition of my book that Wilde continually pretended to a knowledge ofmusic which he had not got. He could hardly tell one tune fromanother, but he loved to talk of that "scarlet thing of Dvorak, "hoping in this way to be accepted as a real critic of music, when heknew nothing about it and cared even less. His eulogies of music andpainting betrayed him continually though he did not know it. ]

"I was so fascinated by painting that I haunted the National Gallery, which Doyle had made perhaps the finest collection of its size in theworld; and I longed for money to buy painting materials with. Thisafterwards saved me from starving: it was as a critic of music andpainting in the _World_ that I won through my ten years of journalismbefore I finished up with you on the _Saturday Review_. I could makedeaf stockbrokers read my two pages on music, the alleged joke beingthat I knew nothing about it. The real joke was that I knew all aboutit. 

"Now it was quite evident to me, as it was to Whistler and Beardsley, that Oscar knew no more about pictures[5] than anyone of his generalculture and with his opportunities can pick up as he goes along. Hecould be witty about Art, as I could be witty about engineering; butthat is no use when you have to seize and hold the attention andinterest of people who really love music and painting. Therefore, Oscar was handicapped by a false start, and got a reputation[6] forshallowness and insincerity which he never retrieved until it was toolate. 

[Footnote 5: I touched upon Oscar's ignorance of art sufficiently Ithink, when I said in my book that he had learned all he knew of artand of controversy from Whistler, and that his lectures on thesubject, even after sitting at the feet of the Master, were almostworthless. ]

[Footnote 6: Perfectly true, and a notable instance of Shaw'sinsight. ]

"Comedy: the criticism of morals and manners _viva voce_, was his realforte. When he settled down to that he was great. But, as you foundwhen you approached Meredith about him, his initial mistake hadproduced that 'rather low opinion of Wilde's capacities, ' that'deep-rooted contempt for the showman in him, ' which persisted as afirst impression and will persist until the last man who remembers hisesthetic period has perished. The world has been in some ways sounjust to him that one must be careful not to be unjust to the world. 

"In the preface on education, called 'Parents and Children, ' to myvolume of plays beginning with _Misalliance_, there is a sectionheaded 'Artist Idolatry, ' which is really about Wilde. Dealing with'the powers enjoyed by brilliant persons who are also connoisseurs inart, ' I say, 'the influence they can exercise on young people who havebeen brought up in the darkness and wretchedness of a home withoutart, and in whom a natural bent towards art has always been baffledand snubbed, is incredible to those who have not witnessed andunderstood it. He (or she) who reveals the world of art to them opensheaven to them. They become satellites, disciples, worshippers of theapostle. Now the apostle may be a voluptuary without much conscience. Nature may have given him enough virtue to suffice in a reasonableenvironment. But this allowance may not be enough to defend himagainst the temptation and demoralization of finding himself a littlegod on the strength of what ought to be a quite ordinary culture. Hemay find adorers in all directions in our uncultivated society amongpeople of stronger character than himself, not one of whom, if theyhad been artistically educated, would have had anything to learn fromhim, or regarded him as in any way extraordinary apart from his actualachievements as an artist. Tartufe is not always a priest. Indeed, heis not always a rascal: he is often a weak man absurdly credited withomniscience and perfection, and taking unfair advantages only becausethey are offered to him and he is too weak to refuse. Give everyonehis culture, and no one will offer him more than his due. '

"That paragraph was the outcome of a walk and talk I had one afternoonat Chartres with Robert Ross. 

"You reveal Wilde as a weaker man than I thought him: I still believethat his fierce Irish pride had something to do with his refusal torun away from the trial. But in the main your evidence is conclusive. It was part of his tragedy that people asked more moral strength fromhim that he could bear the burden of, because they made the verycommon mistake--of which actors get the benefit--of regarding style asevidence of strength, just as in the case of women they are apt toregard paint as evidence of beauty. Now Wilde was so in love withstyle that he never realized the danger of biting off more than hecould chew: in other words, of putting up more style than his matterwould carry. Wise kings wear shabby clothes, and leave the gold laceto the drum major. 

"You do not, unless my memory is betraying me as usual, quiterecollect the order of events just before the trial. That day at theCafé Royal, Wilde said he had come to ask you to go into the witnessbox next day and testify that _Dorian Gray_ was a highly moral work. Your answer was something like this: 'For God's sake, man, puteverything on that plane out of your head. You don't realize what isgoing to happen to you. It is not going to be a matter of clever talkabout your books. They are going to bring up a string of witnessesthat will put art and literature out of the question. Clarke willthrow up his brief. He will carry the case to a certain point; andthen, when he sees the avalanche coming, he will back out and leaveyou in the dock. What you have to do is to cross to France to-night. Leave a letter saying that you cannot face the squalor and horror of alaw case; that you are an artist and unfitted for such things. Don'tstay here clutching at straws like testimonials to _Dorian Gray_. _Itell you I know. _ I know what is going to happen. I know Clarke'ssort. I know what evidence they have got. You must go. '

"It was no use. Wilde was in a curious double temper. He made nopretence either of innocence or of questioning the folly of hisproceedings against Queensberry. But he had an infatuate haughtinessas to the impossibility of his retreating, and as to his right todictate your course. Douglas sat in silence, a haughty indignantsilence, copying Wilde's attitude as all Wilde's admirers did, butquite probably influencing Wilde as you suggest, by the copy. Oscarfinally rose with a mixture of impatience and his grand air, andwalked out with the remark that he had now found out who were his realfriends; and Douglas followed him, absurdly smaller, and imitating hiswalk, like a curate following an archbishop. [7] You remember it theother way about; but just consider this. Douglas was in the wretchedposition of having ruined Wilde merely to annoy his father, and ofhaving attempted it so idiotically that he had actually prepared atriumph for him. He was, besides, much the youngest man present, andlooked younger than he was. You did not make him welcome: as far as Irecollect you did not greet him by a word or nod. If he had given thesmallest provocation or attempted to take the lead in any way, Ishould not have given twopence for the chance of your keeping yourtemper. And Wilde, even in his ruin--which, however, he did not yetfully realize--kept his air of authority on questions of taste andconduct. It was practically impossible under such circumstances thatDouglas should have taken the stage in any way. Everyone thought him ahorrid little brat; but I, not having met him before to my knowledge, and having some sort of flair for his literary talent, was curious tohear what he had to say for himself. But, except to echo Wilde once ortwice, he said nothing. [8] You are right in effect, because it wasevident that Wilde was in his hands, and was really echoing him. ButWilde automatically kept the prompter off the stage and himself in themiddle of it. 

[Footnote 7: This is an inimitable picture, but Shaw's fine sense ofcomedy has misled him. The scene took place absolutely as I recordedit. Douglas went out first saying--"Your telling him to run away showsthat you are no friend of Oscar's. " Then Oscar got up to follow him. He said good-bye to Shaw, adding a courteous word or two. As he turnedto the door I got up and said:--"I hope you do not doubt myfriendship; you have no reason to. "

"I do not think this is friendly of you, Frank, " he said, and went onout. ]

[Footnote 8: I am sure Douglas took the initiative and walked outfirst. 

_I have no doubt you are right, and that my vision of the exit isreally a reminiscence of the entrance. In fact, now that you prompt mymemory, I recall quite distinctly that Douglas, who came in as thefollower, went out as the leader, and that the last word was spoken byWilde after he had gone. --G. B. S. _]

"What your book needs to complete it is a portrait of yourself as goodas your portrait of Wilde. Oscar was not combative, though he wassupercilious in his early pose. When his snobbery was not in action, he liked to make people devoted to him and to flatter them exquisitelywith that end. Mrs. Calvert, whose great final period as a stage oldwoman began with her appearance in my _Arms and the Man_, told me oneday, when apologizing for being, as she thought, a bad rehearser, thatno author had ever been so nice to her except Mr. Wilde. 

"Pugnacious people, if they did not actually terrify Oscar, were atleast the sort of people he could not control, and whom he feared aspossibly able to coerce him. You suggest that the Queensberrypugnacity was something that Oscar could not deal with successfully. But how in that case could Oscar have felt quite safe with you? Youwere more pugnacious than six Queensberrys rolled into one. Whenpeople asked, 'What has Frank Harris been?' the usual reply was, 'Obviously a pirate from the Spanish Main. '

"Oscar, from the moment he gained your attachment, could never havebeen afraid of what you might do to him, as he was sufficient of aconnoisseur in Blut Bruderschaft to appreciate yours; but he mustalways have been mortally afraid of what you might do or say to hisfriends. [9]

[Footnote 9: This insight on Shaw's part makes me smile because it isabsolutely true. Oscar commended Bosie Douglas to me again and againand again, begged me to be nice to him if we ever met by chance; but Irefused to meet him for months and months. ]

"You had quite an infernal scorn for nineteen out of twenty of the menand women you met in the circles he most wished to propitiate; andnothing could induce you to keep your knife in its sheath when theyjarred on you. The Spanish Main itself would have blushed rosy red atyour language when classical invective did not suffice to express yourfeelings. 

"It may be that if, say, Edmund Gosse had come to Oscar when he wasout on bail, with a couple of first class tickets in his pocket, andgently suggested a mild trip to Folkestone, or the Channel Islands, Oscar might have let himself be coaxed away. But to be called on togallop _ventre à terre_ to Erith--it might have been Deal--and hoistthe Jolly Roger on board your lugger, was like casting a lightcomedian and first lover for _Richard III_. Oscar could not seehimself in the part. 

"I must not press the point too far; but it illustrates, I think, whatdoes not come out at all in your book: that you were a very differentperson from the submissive and sympathetic disciples to whom he wasaccustomed. There are things more terrifying to a soul like Oscar'sthan an as yet unrealized possibility of a sentence of hard labor. Avoyage with Captain Kidd may have been one of them. Wilde was aconventional man: his unconventionality was the very pedantry ofconvention: never was there a man less an outlaw than he. You were aborn outlaw, and will never be anything else. 

"That is why, in his relations with you, he appears as a man alwaysshirking action--more of a coward (all men are cowards more or less)than so proud a man can have been. Still this does not affect thetruth and power of your portrait. Wilde's memory will have to stand orfall by it. 

"You will be blamed, I imagine, because you have not written a lyingepitaph instead of a faithful chronicle and study of him; but you willnot lose your sleep over that. As a matter of fact, you could not havecarried kindness further without sentimental folly. I should have madea far sterner summing up. I am sure Oscar has not found the gates ofheaven shut against him: he is too good company to be excluded; but hecan hardly have been greeted as, 'Thou good and faithful servant. ' Thefirst thing we ask a servant for is a testimonial to honesty, sobrietyand industry; for we soon find out that these are the scarce things, and that geniuses[10] and clever people are as common as rats. Well, Oscar was not sober, not honest, not industrious. Society praised himfor being idle, and persecuted him savagely for an aberration which ithad better have left unadvertized, thereby making a hero of him; forit is in the nature of people to worship those who have been made tosuffer horribly: indeed I have often said that if the crucifixioncould be proved a myth, and Jesus convicted of dying of old age incomfortable circumstances, Christianity would lose ninety-nine percent. Of its devotees. 

[Footnote 10: The English paste in Shaw; genius is about the rarestthing on earth whereas the necessary quantum of "honesty, sobriety andindustry, " is beaten by life into nine humans out of ten. --ED. 

_If so, it is the tenth who comes my way. --G. B. S. _]

"We must try to imagine what judgment we should have passed on Oscarif he had been a normal man, and had dug his grave with his teeth inthe ordinary respectable fashion, as his brother Willie did. Thisbrother, by the way, gives us some cue; for Willie, who had exactlythe same education and the same chances, must be ruthlessly set asideby literary history as a vulgar journalist of no account. Well, suppose Oscar and Willie had both died the day before Queensberry leftthat card at the Club! Oscar would still have been remembered as a witand a dandy, and would have had a niche beside Congreve in the drama. A volume of his aphorisms would have stood creditably on the libraryshelf with La Rochefoucauld's Maxims. We should have missed the'Ballad of Reading Gaol' and 'De Profundis'; but he would still havecut a considerable figure in the Dictionary of National Biography, andbeen read and quoted outside the British Museum reading room. 

"As to the 'Ballad' and 'De Profundis, ' I think it is greatly toOscar's credit that, whilst he was sincere and deeply moved when hewas protesting against the cruelty of our present system to childrenand to prisoners generally, he could not write about his ownindividual share in that suffering with any conviction orsympathy. [11] Except for the passage where he describes his exposureat Clapham Junction, there is hardly a line in 'De Profundis' that hemight not have written as a literary feat five years earlier. But inthe 'Ballad, ' even in borrowing form and melody from Coleridge, heshews that he could pity others when he could not seriously pityhimself. And this, I think, may be pleaded against the reproach thathe was selfish. Externally, in the ordinary action of life asdistinguished from the literary action proper to his genius, he was nodoubt sluggish and weak because of his giantism. He ended as anunproductive drunkard and swindler; for the repeated sales of theDaventry plot, in so far as they imposed on the buyers and were nottransparent excuses for begging, were undeniably swindles. For allthat, he does not appear in his writings a selfish or base-minded man. He is at his worst and weakest in the suppressed[12] part of 'DeProfundis'; but in my opinion it had better be published, for severalreasons. It explains some of his personal weakness by the stiflingnarrowness of his daily round, ruinous to a man whose proper place wasin a large public life. And its concealment is mischievous because, first, it leads people to imagine all sorts of horrors in a documentwhich contains nothing worse than any record of the squabbles of twotouchy idlers; and, second, it is clearly a monstrous thing thatDouglas should have a torpedo launched at him and timed to explodeafter his death. The torpedo is a very harmless squib; for there isnothing in it that cannot be guessed from Douglas's own book; but thepublic does not know that. By the way, it is rather a humorous strokeof Fate's irony that the son of the Marquis of Queensberry should beforced to expiate his sins by suffering a succession of blows beneaththe belt. 

[Footnote 11: Superb criticism. ]

[Footnote 12: I have said this in my way. ]

"Now that you have written the best life of Oscar Wilde, let us havethe best life of Frank Harris. Otherwise the man behind your workswill go down to posterity[13] as the hero of my very inadequatepreface to 'The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. '"

G. BERNARD SHAW. 

[Footnote 13: A characteristic flirt of Shaw's humor. He is a greatcaricaturist and not a portrait-painter. 

When he thinks of my Celtic face and aggressive American frankness hetalks of me as pugnacious and a pirate: "a Captain Kidd": in hispreface to "The Fair Lady of the Sonnets" he praises my "idiosyncraticgift of pity"; says that I am "wise through pity"; then he extols meas a prophet, not seeing that a pitying sage, prophet and pirateconstitute an inhuman superman. 

I shall do more for Shaw than he has been able to do for me; he is thefirst figure in my new volume of "Contemporary Portraits. " I haveportrayed him there at his best, as I love to think of him, andhenceforth he'll have to try to live up to my conception and that willkeep him, I'm afraid, on strain. 

_God help me!--G. B. S. _]