 Chapter 16 of Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions. Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions, by Frank Harris. Chapter 16 Escape Rejected, The Second Trial and Sentence. In spite of the wit of the hostess and her exquisite cordiality, our dinner at Mrs. Leverson's was hardly a success. Oscar was not himself. Contrary to his custom, he sat silent and downcast. From time to time he sighed heavily, and his leadened ejection gradually infected all of us. I was not sorry, for I wanted to get him away early. By ten o'clock we had left the house and were in the Cromwell Road. He preferred to walk. Without his noticing it, I turned up Queen's Gate towards the park. After walking for ten minutes I said to him, I want to speak to you seriously. Do you happen to know where Eareth is? No, Frank. It is a little landing-place on the Thames, I went on, not many miles away. It can be reached by a fast pair of horses and a broom in a very short time. There at Eareth is a steam-yot, ready to start at a moment's notice. She has steam-up now, one hundred pounds pressure to the square inch in her boilers. Her captains waiting, her crew ready, her greyhound in leash. She can do fifteen knots an hour without being pressed. In one hour she would be free of the Thames and on the high seas, delightful phrase, hey! High seas indeed, where there is freedom uncontrolled. If one started now, one could breakfast in France, at Boulogne, let us say, or Dieppe. One could lunch at Saint-Malo or Saint-Enoge, or any place you like, on the coast of Normandy. And one could dine comfortably at the Sabre d'Olonne, where there is not an Englishman to be found, and where sunshine reigns even in May, from morning till night. What you say, Oscar, will you come and try a homely French bourgeois dinner tomorrow evening, at an inn I know almost at the water's edge. We could sit out on the little terrace and take our coffee in peace under the broad vine-leaves, while watching the silver pathway of the moon widen on the waters. We could smile at the miseries of London and its wolfish courts, shivering in cold grey mist hundreds of miles away, does not the prospect tempt you? I spoke at leisure, tasting each delight, looking for his gladness. Oh, Frank! he cried. How wonderful! But how impossible! Impossible! Don't be absurd! I retorted. Do you see those lights yonder? And I showed him some lights at the park gate, on the top of the hill in front of us. Yes, Frank. That's a broom, I said, with a pair of fast horses. It will take us for a midnight visit to the steam-yard in double-quick time. There's a little library on board of French books and English. I've ordered supper in the cabin, lobster à l'américaine, and a bottle of pommerie. You've never seen the mouth of the Thames at night, have you? It's a scene from Wonderland, houses like blobs of indigo fencing you in, ships drifting past like black ghosts in the misty air, and the purple sky above never so dark as the river, the river with its shifting lights of ruby and emerald and topaz, like an oily opaque servant gliding with a weird life of its own. Come, you must visit the yacht. I turned to him, but he was no longer by my side. I gasped. What had happened? The mist must have hidden him. I ran back ten yards, and there he was, leaning against the railing, hung up with his head on his arm, shaking. What's the matter, Oscar? I cried. What on earth's the matter? Oh, Frank, I can't go, he cried. I can't. It would be too wonderful, but it's impossible. I should be seized by the police. You don't know the police. Nonsense, I cried. The police can't stop you, and not a man of them will see you from start to finish. Besides, I have loose money for any I do meet, and none of them can resist a tip. You will simply get out of the broom and walk fifty yards, and you will be on the yacht and free. In fact, if you like, you shall not come out of the broom until the sailors surround you as a guard of honour. On board the yacht no one will touch you. No warrant runs there. Come on, man. Oh, Frank, he groaned. It's impossible. What's impossible, I insisted. Let's consider everything anew at breakfast tomorrow morning in France. If you want to come back, there's nothing to prevent you. The yacht will take you back in twenty-four hours. You will not have broken your bail. You'll have done nothing wrong. You can go to France, Germany, or Siberia, so long as you come back by the twentieth of May. Take it that I offer you a holiday in France for ten days. Surely it is better to spend a week with me than in that dismal house in Oakley Street, where the very door gives one the creeps. Oh, Frank, I'd love to, he groaned. I see everything you say, but I can't. I dare not. I'm caught, Frank, in a trap. I can only wait for the end. I began to get impatient. He was weaker than I had imagined. Weaker a hundred times. Come for a trip, then, man. I cried, and I brought him within twenty yards of the carriage, but there he stopped as if he had made up his mind. No, no, I can't come. I could not go about in France, feeling that the policeman's hand might fall on my shoulder at any moment. I could not live a life of fear and doubt. It would kill me in a month. His tone was decided. Why let your imagination run away with you, I pleaded. Do be reasonable for once. Fear and doubt would soon be over. If the police don't get you in France within a week after the date fixed for the trial, you need to have no further fear, for they won't get you at all. They don't want you. You're making mountains out of molehills with nervous fancies. I should be arrested. Nonsense, I replied. Who would arrest you? No one has the right. You are out on bail. Your bail answers for you till the twentieth. Money talks, man. Englishmen always listen to money. It'll do you good with the public and the jury to come back from France to stand your trial. Do come. And I took him by the arm, but he would not move. To my astonishment he faced me and said, and my sure it is. We'll pay him, I replied. Both of them. If you break your bail, come. But he would not. Frank, if I were not in Oakley Street tonight, Willie would tell the police. Your brother, I cried. Yes, he said, Willie. Good God! I exclaimed. But let him tell. I have not mentioned Eareth or the Steam Yacht to a soul. It's the last place in the world the police would suspect. And before he talks, we shall be out of reach. Besides, they cannot do anything. You are doing nothing wrong. Please trust me. You do nothing questionable even, till you omit to enter the Old Bailey on the twentieth of May. You don't know Willie, he continued. He has made my solicitors by letters of mine. He has blackmailed me. I whistled. But in that case you'll have no compunction in leaving him without saying goodbye. Let's go and get into the broom. No, no, he repeated. You don't understand. I can't go. I cannot go. Do you mean it really, I asked? Do you mean you will not come and spend a week yachting with me? I cannot. I drew him a few paces nearer the carriage. Something of desolation and despair in his voice touched me. I looked at him. Tears were pouring down his face. He was the picture of misery. Yet I could not move him. Come into the carriage, I said, hoping that the swift wind in his face would freshen him up, give him a moment's taste of the joy of living, and sharpen the desire of freedom. Yes, Frank, if you will take me to Oakley Street. I would as soon take you to prison, I replied, but as you wish. The next moment we had got in and were swinging down Queen's Gate. The mist seemed to lend keenness to the air. At the bottom of Queen's Gate the coachman swept off himself to the left into the Cromwell Road. Oscar seemed to wake out of his stupor. No, Frank. No, no. And he fumbled at the handle of the door. I must get out. I will not go. I will not go. Sit still, I said in despair. I'll tell the coachman. And I put my head out of the window and cried, Oakley Street. Oakley Street, Chelsea, Robert. I do not think I spoke again till we got to Oakley Street. I was consumed with rage and contemptuous impatience. I had done the best I knew, and had failed. Why? I had no idea. I have never known why he refused to come. I don't think he knew himself. Such resignation I had never dreamt of. It was utterly new to me. I used to think of resignation in a vague way as of something rather beautiful. Ever since I have thought of it with impatience. Resignation is the courage of the irresolute. Oscar's obstinacy was the obverse of his weakness. It is astonishing how inertia rules some natures. The attraction of waiting and doing nothing is intense for those who live in thought and detest action. As we turned into Oakley Street, Oscar said to me, You are not angry with me, Frank. And he put out his hand. No, no, I said. Why should I be angry? You are the master of your fate. I can only offer advice. Do come and see me soon. He pleaded. My bolt is shot, I replied, but I'll come in two or three days' time, as soon as I have anything of importance to say. Don't forget, Oscar, the yacht is there, and will be there waiting until the twentieth. The yacht will always be ready, and the broom. Good night, Frank, he said. Good night, and thank you. He got out and went into the house. The gloomy, sordid house where the brother lived, who would sell his blood for a price. Three or four days later, we met again. But to my amaze, Oscar had not changed his mind. To talk of him as cast down is the precise truth. He seemed to me as one who had fallen from a great height, and lay half-conscious, stunned on the ground. The moment you moved him, even to raise his head, it gave him pain, and he cried out to be left alone. There he lay, prone, and no one could help him. It was painful to witness his dumb misery. His mind even, his sunny, bright intelligence, seemed to have deserted him. Once again he came out with me to lunch. Afterwards we drove through Regent's Park, as the quietest way to Hampstead, and had a talk. The air and swift motion did him good. The beauty of the view from the heath seemed to revive him. I tried to cheer him up. You must know, I said, that you can win if you want to. You can not only bring the jury to doubt, but you can make the judge doubt as well. I was convinced of your innocence in spite of all the witnesses, and I knew more about you than they did. In the trial before Mr. Justice Charles, the thing that saved you was that you spoke of the love of David and Jonathan, and the sweet affection which the common world has determined not to understand. There is another point against you which you have not touched on yet. Gil asked you what you had in common with those serving men and stable boys. You have not explained that. You have explained that you love youth, the brightness, and the gaiety of it, but you have not explained what seems inexplicable to most men that you should go about with servants and strappers. Difficult to explain, Frank, isn't it, without the truth? Evidently his mind was not working. No, I replied, easy, simple. Think of Shakespeare. How did he know with dogberry and pistol, bar-dolph and doll-tear-sheet? He must have gone about with them. You don't go about with public schoolboys of your own class, for you know them. You have nothing to learn from them. They can teach you nothing. But the stable boy and servant, you cannot sketch in your plays without knowing him, and you can't know him without getting on his level, and letting him call you Oscar, and calling him Charlie. If you rub this in, the judge will see that he is face to face with the artist in you, and will admit at least that your explanation is plausible. He will hesitate to condemn you, and once he hesitates you'll win. You fought badly because you did not show your own nature sufficiently. You did not use your brains in the witness-box. And alas! I did not continue. The truth was I was filled with fear, for I suddenly realized that he had shown more courage and self-possession in the Queensbury trial than in the trial before Mr. Justice Charles, when so much more was at stake, and I felt that in the next trial he would be more depressed still, and less inclined to take the initiative than ever. I had already learned, too, that I could not help him, that he would not be lifted out of that sweet way of despair which so attracts the artist's spirit, but still I would do my best. Do you understand, I asked? Of course, Frank, of course. But you have no conception how weary I am of the whole thing, of the shame and the struggling and the hatred. To see those people coming into the box, one after the other, to witness against me, makes me sick. The self-satisfied grin of the barristers, the pompous, foolish judge with his thin lips and cunning eyes and hard jaw. Oh, it's terrible. I feel inclined to stretch out my hands and cry to them. Do what you will with me in God's name. Only do it quickly. Cannot you see that I am worn out? If hatred gives you pleasure, indulge it. They worry, one, Frank, with ravening jaws, as dogs worry a rabbit. Yet they call themselves men. It is appalling. The day was dying, the western sky all draped with crimson, saffron and rosy curtains. A slight mist over London, purple on the horizon, closer a mere wash of blue. Here and there steeples pierced the thin veil, like fingers pointing upward. On the left the dome of St. Paul's hung like a grey bubble over the city. On the right the twin towers of Westminster, with the river and bridge which Wordsworth sang. Peace and beauty brooding everywhere, and down there lost in the mist the rat pit that men call the courts of justice. There they judge their fellows, mistaking indifference for impartiality, as if any one could judge his fellow man without love, and even with love how far short we all come of that perfect sympathy which is above forgiveness, and takes delight in suckering the weak, comforting the broken-hearted. The days went swiftly by, and my powerlessness to influence him filled me with self-contempt. Of course, I said to myself, if I knew him better I should be able to help him. Would vanity do anything? It was his main spring, I could but try. He might be led by the hope of making Englishman talk of him again, talk of him as one who had dared to escape. Wonder what he would do next? I would try, and I did try. But his dejection foiled me. His dislike of the struggle seemed to grow from day to day. He would scarcely listen to me. He was counting the days to the trial, willing to accept an adverse decision. Even punishment and misery and shame seemed better than doubt and waiting. He surprised me by saying, A year, Frank, they may give me a year, half the possible sentence, the middle course that English judges always take, the sort of compromise they think safe, and his eyes searched my face for agreement. I felt no such confidence in English judges. Their compromises are usually bargainings. When they get hold of an artist they give reign to their intuitive fear and hate. But I would not discourage him. I repeated, You can win Oscar if you like. My litany to him. His one dejected smile brought tears to my eyes. Don't you want to make them all speak of you and wonder at you again? If you were in France, everyone would be asking, Will he come back or disappear altogether? Or will he manifest himself henceforth in some new comedies more joyous and pagan than ever? I might as well have talked to the dead. He seemed numbed, hypnotised with despair. The punishment had already been greater than he could bear. I began to fear that prison, if he were condemned to it, would rob him of his reason. I sometimes feared that his mind was already giving way, so profound was his depression, so hopeless his despair. The trial opened before Mr. Justice Wills on the 21st of May, 1895. The Treasury had sent Sir Frank Lockwood QCMP to lead Mr. CF Gill, Mr. Horace Avery, and Mr. Sutton. Oscar was represented by the same counsellor's on the previous occasion. The whole trial, to me, was a nightmare, and it was characterised from the very beginning by atrocious prejudice and injustice. The high priests of law were weary of being balked, eager to make an end. As soon as the judge took his seat, Sir Edward Clark applied that the defendants should be tried separately. As they had already been acquitted, on the charge of conspiracy, there was no reason why they should be tried together. The judge called on the Solicitor General to answer the application. The Solicitor General had nothing to say, but thought it was in the interests of the defendants to be tried together, for in case they were tried separately it would be necessary to take the defendant Taylor first. Sir Edward Clark tore this pretext to pieces, and Mr. Justice Wills brought the matter to a conclusion by saying that he was in possession of all the evidence that had been taken at the previous trials, and his opinion was that the two defendants should be tried separately. Sir Edward Clark then applied that the case of Mr. Wilde should be taken first, as his name stood first on the indictment, and as the first count was directed against him and had nothing to do with Taylor. There are reasons present, I am sure, too, in your lordship's mind, why Wilde should not be tried immediately after the other defendant. Mr. Justice Wills remarked with seeming indifference. It ought not to make the least difference, Sir Edward. I am sure I and the jury will do our best to take care that the last trial has no influence at all on the present. Sir Edward Clark stuck to his point. He urged respectfully that as Mr. Wilde's name stood first on the indictment his case should be taken first. Mr. Justice Wills said he could not interfere with the discretion of the prosecution, nor vary the ordinary procedure. Justice sent fair play on the one side and precedent on the other. Justice was waved out of court with serene indifference. Thereupon Sir Edward Clark pressed that the trial of Mr. Oscar Wilde should stand over till the next sessions. But again Mr. Justice Wills refused. Precedent was silent now, but prejudice was strong as ever. The case against Taylor went on the whole day and was resumed the next morning. Taylor went into the box and denied all the charges. The judge summed up dead against him, and at three-thirty the jury retired to consider their verdict. In forty-five minutes they came into court again, with a question which was significant. In answer to the judge, the foreman stated that they had agreed that Taylor had introduced Parker to Wilde, but they were not satisfied with Wilde's guilt in the matter. Mr. Justice Wills, where you agreed us to the charge on the other counts? Foreman, yes my lord. Mr. Justice Wills, well possibly it would be as well to take your verdict upon the other counts. Through the foreman the jury accordingly intimated that they found Taylor guilty with regard to Charles and William Parker. In answer to his lordship Sir F. Lockwood said he would take the verdict given by the jury of guilty upon the two counts. A formal verdict having been entered, the judge ordered the prisoner to stand down, postponing sentence. Did he postpone the sentence in order not to frighten the next jury by the severity of it? Other reason I could find none. Sir Edward Clark then got up and said that as it was getting rather late, perhaps after the second jury had disagreed as to Mr. Wilde's guilt, Sir F. Lockwood here interposed hotly. I object to Sir Edward Clark making these little speeches. Mr. Justice Wills took the matter up as well. You can hardly call it a disagreement, Sir Edward, though what else he could call it I was at a loss to imagine. He then adjourned the case against Oscar Wilde till the next day, when a different jury would be impaneled. But whatever jury might be called, they would certainly hear that their forerunners had found Taylor guilty, and they would know that every London paper without exception had approved the finding. What a fair chance to give Wilde! It was like trying an Irish secretary before a jury of Finians. The next morning, May 23rd, Oscar Wilde appeared in the dock. The solicitor general opened the case, and Ben called his witnesses. One of the first was Edward Shelley, who in cross-examination admitted that he had been mentally ill when he wrote Mr. Wilde those letters which had been put in evidence. He was made nervous from overstudy, he said. Alfred Wood admitted that he had had money given him quite recently, practically blackmailing money. He was as venomous as possible. When he went to America, he said, he told Wilde that he wanted to get away from mixing with him, Wilde, and Douglas. Charlie Parker next repeated his disgusting testimony with ineffable impudence and a certain exultation. Bestial ignominy could go no lower. He admitted that since the former trial he had been kept at the expense of the prosecution. After this confession the case was adjourned and we came out of court. When I reached Fleet Street, I was astonished to hear that there had been a row that same afternoon in Piccadilly between Lord Douglas of Hoyek and his father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Lord Queensbury, it appears, had been writing disgusting letters about the Wilde case to Lord Douglas's wife. Meeting him in Piccadilly, Percy Douglas stopped him and asked him to cease writing obscene letters to his wife. The Marquis said he would not, and the father and son came to blows. Queensbury, it seems, was exasperated by the fact that Douglas of Hoyek was one of those who had gone bail for Oscar Wilde. One of the telegrams which the Marquis of Queensbury had sent to Lady Douglas, I must put in just to show the insane nature of the man who could exult in a trial which was damning the reputation of his own son. The letter was manifestly written after the result of the Taylor trial. Must congratulate on verdict. Cannot on Percy's appearance. Looks like a dug-up corpse. Fear too much madness of kissing. Taylor guilty. Wilde's turn tomorrow. Queensbury In examination before the magistrate, Mr. Honey, it was stated that Lord Queensbury had been sending similar letters to Lady Douglas, full of the most disgusting charges against Lord Douglas, his wife, and Lord Queensbury's divorced wife and her family. But Mr. Honey thought all this provocation was of no importance, and bound over both father and son to keep the peace. An indefensible decision. A decision only to be explained by the sympathy everywhere shown to Queensbury because of his victory over Wilde. Otherwise, surely any honest magistrate would have condemned the father who sent obscene letters to his son's wife. A lady above reproach. An indefensible decision. A decision only to be explained by the sympathy everywhere shown to Queensbury because of his victory over Wilde. Otherwise, surely any honest magistrate would have condemned the father who sent obscene letters to his son's wife. A lady above reproach. These vile letters and the magistrate's bias seemed to me to add the final touch of the grotesque to the horrible vileness of the trial. It was all worthy of the seventh circle of Dante, but Dante never imagined such a father and such judges. Next morning Oscar Wilde was again put in the dock. The evidence of the Queensbury trial was read, and therewith the case was closed for the crown. Sir Edward Clarke rose and submitted that there was no case to go to the jury on the general counts. After a long legal argument fore and against, Mr. Justice Wills said that he would reserve the question for the Court of Appeal. The view he took was that the evidence was of the slenderest kind, but he thought the responsibility must be left with the jury. To this judge the slenderest kind of evidence was worthful so long as it told against the accused. Sir Edward Clarke then argued that the cases of Shelley, Parker and Wood failed on the ground of the absence of corroboration. Mr. Justice Wills admitted that Shelley showed a peculiar exaltation of mind. There was too mental derangement in his family, and worst of all there was no corroboration of his statements. Accordingly, in spite of the arguments of the solicited general, Shelley's evidence was cut out. But Shelley's evidence had already been taken, had already prejudiced the jury. Indeed, it had been the evidence which had influenced Mr. Justice Charles in the previous trial to sum up dead against the defendant. Mr. Justice Charles called Shelley the only serious witness. Now it appeared that Shelley's evidence should never have been taken at all, that the jury ought never to have heard Shelley's testimony or the judge's acceptance of it. When the Court opened next morning, I knew that the whole case depended on Oscar Wilde, and the showing he would make in the box. But, alas, he was broken and numbed. He was not a fighter, and the length of this contest might have wearied a combative nature. The solicited general began by examining him on his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, and we had the prose poem again, and the rest of the ineffable, nonsensical prejudice of the middle-class mind against passionate sentiment. It came out in evidence that Lord Alfred Douglas was now in Calais. His hatred of his father was the kaoza kaozans of the whole case. He had pushed Oscar into the fight, and Oscar, still intent on shielding him, declared that he had asked him to go abroad. Sir Edward Clarke again did his poor best. He pointed out that the trial rested on the evidence of mere blackmailers. He would not quarrel with that and discuss it, but it was impossible not to see that if blackmailers were to be listened to and believed, their profession might speedily become a more deadly mischief and danger to society, and it had ever been. The speech was a weak one, but the people in court cheered Sir Edward Clarke. The cheers were immediately suppressed by the judge. The solicited general took up the rest of the day with a rancorous reply. Sir Edward Clarke even had to remind him that law officers of the Crown should try to be impartial. One instance of his prejudice may be given. Examining Oscar as to his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, Sir Frank Lockwood wanted to know whether he thought them decent. The witness replied, Yes. Do you know the meaning of the word, Sir? was this gentleman's retort. I went out of the court feeling certain that the case was lost. Oscar had not shown himself at all. He had not even spoken with the vigor he had used at the Queensbury trial. He seemed too despairing to strike a blow. The summing up of the judge on May 25th was perversely stupid and malevolent. He began by declaring that he was absolutely impartial, though his view of the facts had to be corrected again and again by Sir Edward Clarke. He went on to regret that the charge of conspiracy should have been introduced, as it had to be abandoned. He then pointed out that he could not give a colourless summing up, which was of no use to anybody. His intelligence can be judged from one crucial point. He fastened on the fact that Oscar had burned the letters which he bought from Wood, which he said were of no importance, except that they concerned third parties. The judge had persuaded himself that the letters were indescribably bad, forgetting apparently that Wood or his associates had selected and retained the very worst of them for purposes of blackmail, and that this judge himself, after reading it, couldn't attribute any weight to it. Still he insisted that burning the letters was an act of madness, whereas it seemed to every one of the slightest imagination the most natural thing in the world for an innocent man to do. At the time Oscar burnt the letters, he had no idea that he would ever be on trial. His letters had been misunderstood, and the worst of them was being used against him. And when he got the others, he naturally threw them into the fire. The judge held that it was madness, and built upon this inference a pyramid of guilt. Nothing said by Wood should be believed, as he belongs to the vilest class of criminals. The strength of the accusation depends solely upon the character of the original introduction of Wood to Wild, as illustrated and fortified by the story with regard to the letters and their burning. A pyramid of guilt carefully balanced on its apex. If the foolish judge had only read his Shakespeare, what does Henry VI say? Proceed no straighter against our uncle Gloucester than from true evidence of good esteem he be approved in practice culpable. There was no true evidence of good esteem against Wild, but the judge turned a harmless action into a confession of guilt. Then came an interruption which threw light on the English conception of justice. The foreman of the jury wanted to know, in view of the intimate relations between Lord Alfred Douglas and the defendant, whether a warrant against Lord Alfred Douglas was ever issued. Mr. Justice Wills, I should say not, we have never heard of it. Foreman, or ever contemplated, Mr. Justice Wills, that I cannot say, nor can we discuss it. The issue of such a warrant would not depend upon the testimony of the parties, but whether there was evidence of such act. Letters pointing to such relations would not be sufficient. Lord Alfred Douglas was not called, and you can give what weight you like to that. Foreman, if we ought to deduce any guilt from these letters, it would apply equally to Lord Alfred Douglas. Mr. Justice Wills concurred in that view, but after all he thought it had nothing to do with the present trial, which was the guilt of the accused. The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three. After being absent two hours, they returned to know whether there was any evidence of Charles Parker having slept at St. James's Place. His lordship replied, No. The jury shortly afterwards returned again, with the verdict of guilty on all the counts. It may be worthwhile to note again that the judge himself admitted that the evidence on some of the counts was of the slenderest kind. But when backed by his prejudice summing up, it was more than sufficient for the jury. Sir Edward Clark pleaded that sentence should be postponed till the next sessions, when the legal argument would be heard. Mr. Justice Wills would not be balked. Sentence, he thought, should be given immediately. Then, addressing the prisoners, he said, and again I give his exact words lest I should do him wrong. Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor, the crime of which you have been convicted, is so bad, that one has to put stern restraint upon oneself to prevent oneself from describing in language which I would rather not use, the sentiments which must rise to the breast of every man of honour who has heard the details of these two terrible trials. That the jury have arrived to correct verdict in this case, I cannot persuade myself to entertain the shadow of a doubt, and I hope at all events that those who sometimes imagine that a judge is half-hearted in the cause of decency and morality, because he takes care, no prejudice shall enter into the case, may see that that is consistent at least with the utmost sense of indignation at the horrible charges brought home to both of you. It is no use for me to address you. People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them. It is the worst case I have ever tried. That you, Wilde, have been the centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men, it is impossible to doubt. I shall under such circumstances be expected to pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this. The sentence of the court is that each of you be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for two years. The sentence hushed the court in shocked surprise. Wilde rose and cried, Can I say anything, my lord? Mr. Justice Wills waved his hand deprecatingly amid cries of shame. And hisses from the public gallery. Some of the cries and hisses were certainly addressed to the judge, and well deserved. What did he mean by saying that Oscar was a centre of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind? No evidence of this had been brought forward by the prosecution. It was not even alleged that a single innocent person had been corrupted. The accusation was invented by this absolutely impartial judge to justify his atrocious cruelty. The unmerited insults and appalling sentence would have disgraced the worst judge of the inquisition. Mr. Justice Wills evidently suffered from the peculiar exaltation of mind which he had recognised in Shelley. This peculiarity is shared in a lesser degree by several other judges on the English bench in all matters of sexual morality. What distinguished Mr. Justice Wills was that he was proud of his prejudice and eager to act on it. He evidently did not know, or did not care, that the sentence which he had given, declaring it was totally inadequate, had been condemned by a royal commission as inhuman. He would willingly have pushed inhumanity to savagery out of sheer bewigged stupidity, and that he was probably well-meaning only intensified the revolt one felt at such brainless malevolence. The bitterest words in Dante are not bitter enough to render my feeling. Non ragioniam di lor ma guardi bassa. Readers' translation. Let us not waste words on them, but glance and pass by. The whole scene had sickened me, hatred masquerading as justice, striking vindictively and adding insult to injury. The vile picture had its fit setting outside. We had not left the court when the cheering broke out in the streets, and when we came outside there were troops of the lowest women of the town dancing together and kicking up their legs in hideous abandonment, while the surrounding crowd of policemen and spectators gaffored with delight. As I turned away from the exhibition, as obscene and sole defiling as anything witnessed in the madness of the French Revolution, I caught a glimpse of wood and the parkers getting into a cab laughing and leering. These were the venal creatures Oscar Wilde was punished for having corrupted. End of chapter 16. Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey, Chapter 17 of Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions by Frank Harris. Chapter 17. Prison and the Effects of Punishment. Prison for Oscar Wilde, an English prison with its insufficient bad food and soul-degrading routine, for that amiable, joyous, eloquent, pampered Sibirite. Here was a test indeed, an ordeal as by fire. What would he make of two years hard labour in a lonely cell? There are two ways of taking prison as of taking most things, and all the myriad ways between those two extremes. Would Oscar be conquered by it and allow remorse and hatred to corrupt his very heart, or would he conquer the prison and possess and use it? Hammer or Anvil, which? Victory has its virtue and is justified of itself like sunshine. Defeat carries its own condemnation. Yet we have all tasted its bitter waters. Only infinite virtue can pass through life victorious, Shakespeare tells us, and we mortals are not of infinite virtue. The myriad vicissitudes of the struggle search out all our weaknesses, test all our powers. Every victory shows a more difficult height to scale, a steeper pinnacle of godlike hardship. That's the reward of victory. It provides the hero with ever-new battlefields. No rest for him, this side of the grave. But what of defeat? What sweet is there in its bitter? This may be said for it, it is our great school. Punishment teaches pity, just as suffering teaches sympathy. In defeat the brave soul learns kinship with other men, takes the rub to heart, seeks out the reason for the fall in his own weakness, and ever afterwards finds it impossible to judge, much less condemn his fellow. But after all no one can hurt us but ourselves. Prison, hard labour, and the hate of men, what are these if they make you truer, wiser, kinder? Have you come to grief through self-indulgence and good living? Here are months in which men will take care that you shall eat badly and lie hard. Do you lack respect for others? Here are men who will show you no consideration. Where you careless of others' sufferings. Here now you shall agonise unheeded, jailers and governors as well as black cells, just to teach you. Thank your stars then for every day's experience, for when you have learned the lesson of it and turned its discipline into service, the prison shall transform itself into a hermitage, the dungeon into a home. The burnt skilly shall be sweet in your mouth, and your rest on the plank bed, the dreamless slumber of a little child. And if you are an artist, prison will be more to you than this, an astonishing vital and novel experience, accorded only to the chosen. What will you make of it? That's the question for you. It is a wonderful opportunity. Seen truly, a prison's more spacious than a palace, nay, richer, and for a loving soul, a far rarer experience. Thank then the spirit which steers men for the divine chance which has come to you. Henceforth the prison shall be your domain. In future men will not think of it without thinking of you. Others may show them what the good things of life do for one. You will show them what suffering can do, cold and regretful sleepless hours and solitude, misery and distress. Others will teach the lessons of joy. The whole vast underworld of pity and pain, fear and horror and injustice is your kingdom. Men have drawn darkness about you as a curtain, shrouded you in blackest night. The light in you will shine the brighter, always provided, of course, that the light is not put out altogether. Hammer or anvil? How would Oscar Wilde take punishment? We could not know for months. Yet he was an artist by nature that gave one a glimmer of hope. We needed it. For outside at first there was an icy atmosphere of hatred and contempt. The mere mention of his name was met with expressions of disgust or frozen silence. One bare incident will paint the general feeling more clearly than pages of invective or description. The day after Oscar's sentence, Mr. Charles Brookfield, who it will be remembered, had raked together the witnesses that enabled Lord Queensborough to justify his accusation. Assisted by Mr. Charles Hortree, the actor, gave a dinner to Lord Queensborough to celebrate their triumph. Some forty Englishmen of good position were present at the banquet, a feast to celebrate the ruin and degradation of a man of genius. Yet there are true souls in England, noble, generous hearts. I remember a lunch at Mrs. Jones, where one declared that Wilde was at length enjoying his desserts. Another regretted that his punishment was so slight. A third, with precise knowledge, intimated delicately, and with quiet complacence, that two years imprisonment with hard labour usually resulted in idiocy or death. Fifty percent it appeared failed to win through. It was more to be dreaded on all accounts than five years' penal servitude. You see, it begins with starvation and solitary confinement, and that breaks up the strongest. I think it will be enough for our vain, glorious talker. Miss Madeline Stanley, now Lady Middleton, was sitting beside me, her fine, sensitive face clouded. I could not contain myself. I was being whipped on a sore. This must have been the way they talked in Jerusalem, I remarked, after the world tragedy. You were an intimate friend of his, were you not? Insinuated the delicate one gently. A friend and admirer, I replied, and always shall be. A glacial silence spread round the table, while the delicate one smiled with deprecating contempt, and offered some grapes to his neighbour. But help came. Lady Dorothy Neville was a little further down the table. She had not heard all that was said, but had caught the tone of the conversation, and divined the rest. Are you talking of Oscar Wilde? she exclaimed. I'm glad to hear you say you are a friend. I am, too, and shall always be proud of having known him, a most brilliant, charming man. I think of giving a dinner to him when he comes out, Lady Dorothy, I said. I hope you'll ask me, she answered bravely. I should be glad to come. I always admired and liked him. I feel dreadfully sorry for him. The delicate one adroitly changed the conversation, and coffee came in. But Miss Stanley said to me, I wish I had known him. There must have been great gaud in him to win such friendship. Great charm in any case, I replied, and that's rarer among men than even goodness. The first news that came to us from prison was not altogether bad. He had broken down, and was in the infirmary, but was getting better. The brave Stuart Headlam, who had gone bail for him, had visited him. The Stuart Headlam, who was an English clergyman, and yet wonder of wonders, a Christian. A little later one heard that Sherrod had seen him, and brought about a reconciliation with his wife. Mrs. Wilde had been very good, and had gone to the prison, and had no doubt comforted him. Much to be hoped from all this. For months and months the situation in South Africa took all my heart and mind. In the first days of January 1896 came the Jameson raid, and I sailed for South Africa. I had work to do for the Saturday review, absorbing work by day and night. In the summer I was back in England, but the task of defending the Boer farmers grew more and more arduous, and I only heard that Oscar was going on as well as could be expected. Some time later, after he had been transferred to Reading Jail, bad news leaked out. News that he was breaking up, was being punished, persecuted. His friends came to me, asking, could anything be done? As usual my only hope was in the supreme authority. Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise was the head of the prison commission. After the home secretary, the most powerful person, the permanent official behind the parliamentary figurehead, the man who knew and acted behind the man who talked. I sat down and wrote to him for an interview. By return came a courteous note giving me an appointment. I told him what I had heard about Oscar, that his health was breaking down, and his reason going, pointed out how monstrous it was to turn prison into a torture chamber. To my utter astonishment he agreed with me, admitted even that an exceptional man ought to have exceptional treatment, showed not a trace of pedantry. Good brains, good heart. He went so far as to say that Oscar Wilde should be treated with all possible consideration, that certain prison rules which pressed very hardly upon him should be interpreted as mildly as possible. He admitted that the punishment was much more severe to him than it would be to an ordinary criminal, and had nothing but admiration for his brilliant gifts. It was a great pity, he said, that Wilde ever got into prison a great pity. I was pushing at an open door. Besides, the year or so which had elapsed since the condemnation had given time for reflection. Still Sir Ruggles Brise's attitude was extraordinary, sympathetic at once, and high-minded. Another true Englishman at the head of affairs, infinite hope in that fact, and solace. I had stuck to my text that something should be done at once to give Oscar courage and hope. He must not be murdered or left to despair. Sir Ruggles Brise asked me finally if I would go to Reading and report on Oscar Wilde's condition, and make any suggestion that might occur to me. He did not know if this could be arranged, but he would see the Home Secretary and would recommend it, if I were willing. Of course I was willing, more than willing. Two or three days later I got another letter from him with another appointment, and again I went to see him. He received me with charming kindness. The Home Secretary would be glad if I would go down to Reading and report on Oscar Wilde's state. Everyone, said Sir Ruggles Brise, speaks with admiration and delight of his wonderful talents. The Home Secretary thinks it would be a great loss to English literature if he were really injured by the prison discipline. Here is your order to see him alone, and a word of introduction to the Governor, and a request to give you all information. I could not speak. I could only shake hands with him in silence. What a country of anomalies England is. A judge of the High Court, a hard, self-satisfied, pernicious, bigot. While the official in charge of the prisons is a man of wide culture and humane views, who has the courage of a noble humanity. I went to Reading Jail and sent in my letter. I was met by the Governor, who gave orders that Oscar Wilde should be conducted to a room where we could talk alone. I cannot give an account of my interviews with the Governor or the Doctor. It would smack of a breach of confidence. Besides, all such conversations are peculiarly personal. Some people call forth the best in us, others the worst. Without wishing to, I may have stirred up the leaves. I can only say here that I then learned for the first time the full incredible meaning of man's inhumanity to man. In a quarter of an hour, I was led into a bare room where Oscar Wilde was already standing by a plain-deal table. The warder who had come with him then left us. We shook hands and sat down opposite to each other. He had changed greatly. He appeared much older. His dark brown hair was streaked with grey, particularly in front and over the ears. He was much thinner, had lost at least thirty-five pounds, probably forty or more. On the whole, however, he looked better physically than he had looked for years before his imprisonment. His eyes were clear and bright. The outlines of the face were no longer swamped in fat. The voice even was ringing and musical. He had improved bodily, I thought, though in repose his face were a nervous, depressed and harassed air. You know how glad I am to see you, heart glad to find you looking so well, I began, but tell me quickly, for I may be able to help you, what have you to complain of? What do you want? For a long time he was too hopeless, too frightened to talk. The list of my grievances, he said, would be without end. The worst of it is I am perpetually being punished for nothing. This governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite. With books my life would be livable. Any life, he added sadly. The life, then, is hard. Tell me about it. I don't like to, he said. It is also dreadful and ugly and painful. I would rather not think of it, and he turned away despairingly. You must tell me, or I shall not be able to help you. Bit by bit I won the confession from him. At first it was a fiendish nightmare, more horrible than anything I had ever dreamt of. From the first evening when they made me undress before them, and get into some filthy water they called a bath, and dry myself with a damp brown rag, and put on this livery of shame. The cell was appalling. I could hardly breathe in it, and the food turned my stomach. The smell and sight of it were enough. I did not eat anything for days and days. I could not even swallow the bread, and the rest of the food was unheatable. I lay on the so-called bed, and shivered all night long. Don't ask me to speak of it, please. Words cannot convey the cumulative effect of a myriad discomforts, brutal handling, and slow starvation. Surely, like Dante, I have written on my face the fact that I have been in hell. Only Dante never imagined any hell like an English prison. In his lowest circle people could move about, could see each other, and hear each other groan. There was some change, some human companionship in misery. When did you begin to eat the food? I asked. I can't tell, Frank, he replied. After some days I got so hungry I had to eat a little, nibble at the outside of the bread, and drink some of the liquid, whether it was tea, coffee, or gruel, I could not tell. As soon as I really ate anything it produced violent diarrhea, and I was ill all day and all night. From the beginning I could not sleep. I grew weak and had wild delusions. You must not ask me to describe it. It is like asking a man who has gone through fever to describe one of the terrifying dreams. At once worth I thought I should go mad. Once worth is the worst. No dungeon in hell can be worse. Why is the food so bad? It even smelt bad. It was not fit for dogs. Was the food the worst of it? I asked. The hunger made you weak, Frank, but the inhumanity was the worst of it. What devilish creatures men are. I had never known anything about them. I had never dreamt of such cruelties. A man spoke to me at exercise. You know you were not allowed to speak. He was in front of me and he whispered so that he could not be seen how sorry he was for me and how he hoped I would bear up. I stretched out my hands to him and cried, Oh, thank you, thank you! The kindness of his voice brought tears into my eyes. Of course I was punished at once for speaking, a dreadful punishment. I won't think of it, I dare not. They are infinitely cunning in malice here, Frank, infinitely cunning in punishment. Don't let us talk of it. It is too painful, too horrible, that men should be so brutal. Give me an instance, I said, of something less painful, something which may be bettered. He smiled onely. All of it, Frank, all of it should be altered. There is no spirit in a prison but hate, hate masked in degrading formalism. They first break the will and rob you of hope, and then rule by fear. One day a warder came into my cell. Take off your boots, he said. Of course I began to obey him. Then I asked, what is it? Why must I take off my boots? He would not answer me. As soon as he had my boots, he said, come out of your cell. Why, I asked again. I was frightened, Frank. What had I done? I could not guess. But then I was often punished for nothing. What was it? No answer. As soon as we were in the corridor, he ordered me to stand with my face to the wall, and went away. There I stood in my stocking feet, waiting. The cold chilled me through. I began standing first on one foot and then on the other, racking my brains as to what they were going to do to me, wondering why I was being punished like this, and how long it would last. You know the thoughts fear-borne that plague the mind. After what seemed an eternity, I heard him coming back. I did not dare to move or even look. He came up to me, stopped by me for a moment. My heart stopped. He threw down a pair of boots beside me, and said, go to your cell and put those on. And I went into my cell shaking. That's the way they give you a new pair of boots in prison, Frank. That's the way they are kind to you. The first period was the worst, I asked. Oh yes, infinitely the worst. One gets accustomed to everything in time, to the food and the bed and the silence. One learns the rules, and knows what to expect and what to fear. How did you win through the first period? I asked. I died, he said quietly, and came to life again, as a patient. I stared at him. Quite true, Frank, what with the purgings and the semi-starvation and sleeplessness, and worst of all the regret knowing that my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker and weaker. My clothes hung on me. I could scarcely move. One Sunday morning, after a very bad night, I could not get out of bed. The water came in, and I told him I was ill. You had better get up, he said. But I couldn't take the good advice. I can't, I replied. You must do what you like with me. Half an hour later, the doctor came, and looked in at the door. He never came near me, he simply called out. Get up! No more lingering. You're all right. You'll be punished if you don't get up. And he went away. I had to get up. I was very weak. I fell off my bed while dressing and bruised myself. But I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to go with the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all out of tune, in praise of their pitiless God. I could hardly stand up. Everything kept disappearing and coming back faintly. And suddenly I must have fallen. He put his hand to his head. I woke up feeling a pain in this ear. I was in the infirmary with a warder by me. My hand rested on a clean white sheet. It was like heaven. I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it. It was so smooth and cool and clean. The nurse with kind eyes said to me, do eat something, and gave me some thin white bread and butter. Frank, I shall never forget it. The water came into my mouth in streams. I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious. I was so weak I cried, and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears. I shall never forget it. The water was so kind. I did not like to tell him I was famished. But when he went away I picked the crumbs off the sheet and et them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to the edge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor, and et those as well. The white bread was so good, and I was so hungry. And now, I asked, not able to stand more. Oh, now, he said, with an attempt to be cheerful. Oh, of course it would be all right, if they did not take my books away from me. If they would let me write. If only they would let me write, as I wish. I should be quite content. But they punish me on every pretext. Why do they do it, Frank? Why do they want to make my life here one long misery? Aren't you a little deaf still? I asked, to ease the passion I felt of intolerable pity. Yes, he replied, on this side, where I fell in the chapel. I fell on my ear, you know, and I must have burst the drum of it, or injured it in some way, for all through the winter it has ached, and it often bleeds a little. But they could give you some cotton wool or something to put in it. I said. He smiled a poor one's smile. Oh, if you think one dare disturb a doctor or a warder for an earache, you don't know much about a prison. You would pay for it. Why, Frank, however ill I was now, and he lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced about him as if fearing to be overheard. However ill I was, I would not think of sending for the doctor, not think of it, he said in an awestruck voice. I have learned prison ways. I should rebel, I cried. Why do you let it break the spirit? You would soon be broken if you rebelled here. Besides, it is all incidental to the system. The system. No one outside knows what that means. It is an old story, I'm afraid, the story of man's cruelty to man. I think I can promise you, I said, that the system will be altered a little. You shall have books and things to write with, and you shall not be harassed every moment by punishment. Take care, he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine. Take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they can do. I grew hot with indignation. Don't say anything please of what I have said to you. Promise me, you won't say anything. Promise me, I never complained, I didn't. His excitement was a revelation. All right, I replied to soothe him. No, but promise me seriously, he repeated. You must promise me. Think you have my confidence. It is private what I have said. He was evidently frightened out of self-control. All right, I said, I will not tell, but I'll get the facts from the others and not from you. Oh, Frank, he said, you don't know what they do. There is a punishment here more terrible than the rack. And he whispered to me with white, side-long eyes. They can drive you mad in a week, Frank. Mad, I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him, though he was white and trembling. What about the warders? I asked again to change the subject, for I began to feel that I had sucked full on horrors. Some of them are kind, he sighed. The one that brought me in here is so kind to me. I should like to do something for him when I get out. He's quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things. But some of them at Wandsworth were brutes. I will not think of them again. I have sewn those pages up, and you must never ask me to open them again. I dare not open them. He cried pitifully. But you ought to tell it all, I said. That's perhaps the purpose you are here for, the ultimate reason. Oh no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to come here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don't believe you could do it. I don't believe anyone would be strong enough. Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone's strength. Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death. That's what two years hard labour means. It's not the labour that's hard. It's the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard. They break you down, body and soul. And if you resist, they drive you crazy. But please, don't say I said anything. You've promised. You know you have. You'll remember, won't you? I felt guilty. His insistence, his gasping fear, showed me how terribly he must have suffered. He was beside himself with dread. I ought to have visited him sooner. I changed the subject. You shall have writing materials and your books, Oscar. Force yourself to write. You were looking better than you used to look. Your eyes are brighter, your face clearer. The old smile came back into his eyes, the deathless humour. I've had a rest-core, Frank, he said, and smiled feebly. You should give record of this life as far as you can, and of all its influences on you. You have conquered, you know. Write the names of the inhuman brutes on their foreheads in vitriol, as Dante did for all time. No, no, I cannot. I will not. I want to live and forget. I could not. I dare not. I have not Dante's strength, nor his bitterness. I am a Greek, born out of due time. He had said the true word at last. I will come again and see you, I replied. Is there nothing else I can do? I hear your wife has seen you. I hope you have made it up with her. She tried to be kind to me, Frank, he said in a dull voice. She was kind, I suppose. She must have suffered. I'm sorry. One felt he had no sorrow to spare for others. Is there nothing I can do? I asked. Nothing, Frank. Only if you could get me books and writing materials, if I could be allowed to use them really. But you won't say anything I have said to you. You promise me you won't. I promise, I replied, and I shall come back in a short time to see you again. I think you will be better then. Don't dread the coming out. You have friends who will work for you. Great allies! And I told him about Lady Dorothy Neville at Mrs. Jeanne's lunch. Isn't she a dear old lady? he cried, charming, brilliant human creature. She might have stepped out of a page of Thackeray. Only Thackeray never wrote a page quite dainty and charming enough. He came near it in his Esmond. Oh, I remember you don't like the book. But it is beautifully written, Frank, in beautiful, simple, rhythmic English. It sings itself to the ear. Lady Dorothy, how he loved the title, was always kind to me. But London is horrible. I could not live in London again. I must go away out of England. Do you remember talking to me, Frank, of France? And he put both hands on my shoulders, while tears ran down his face and sighs broke from him. Beautiful France! The one country in the world where they care for humane ideals and the humane life. Oh, if only I had gone with you to France! And the tears poured down his cheeks, and our hands met convulsively. I'm glad to see you looking so well, I began again. Books you shall have. For God's sake, keep your heart up, and I will come back and see you, and don't forget you have good friends outside, lots of us. Thank you, Frank. But take care, won't you, and remember your promise not to tell? I nodded in a sense and went to the door. The warder came in. The interview is over, I said. Will you take me downstairs? If you will not mind sitting here, sir," he said, for a minute, I must take him back first. I have been telling my friend," said Oscar to the warder, how good you have been to me. And he turned and went, leaving with me the memory of his eyes and unforgettable smile. But I noticed as he disappeared that he was thin, and looked hunched up and bowed in the ugly, ill-fitting prison livery. I took out a bank note and put it under the blotting paper that had been placed on the table for me. In two or three minutes the warder came back, and as I left the room I thanked him for being kind to my friend, and told him how kindly Oscar had spoken of him. He has no business here, sir," the warder said. He's no more like one of our regulars than a canary is like one of them cocky little spadgers. Prison ain't meant for such as him, and he ain't meant for prison. He's that soft, sir, you see, and affectionate. He's more like a woman, he is. You hurt him without meaning to. I don't care what they say, I likes him. And he do talk beautiful, sir, don't he? Indeed he does, I said, the best talker in the world. I want you to look in the pad on the table. I have left a note there for you. Not for me, sir, I could not take it. No, sir, please not. He cried in a hurried, fear-struck voice. You've forgotten something, sir. Come back and get it, sir, do, please. I don't. In spite of my remonstrance, he took me back, and I had to put the note in my pocket. I could not, you know, sir. I was not kind to him for that. His manner changed. He seemed hurt. I told him I was sure of it, sure, and begged him to believe, that if I were able to do anything for him at any time, I'd be glad, and gave him my address. He was not even listening. An honest, good man, full of the milk of human kindness. How kind deeds shine star-like in this prison of a world. That warder and surruggles brise, each in his own place. Such men are the salt of the English world. Better are not to be found on earth. End of chapter 17. Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey