# bib

id: chapter-001
title: chapter-001
txt: ./txt/chapter-001.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-001.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The summons and plaint charged that this letter written to the father of the plaintiff by Lady Wilde was a libel reflecting on the character and chastity of Miss Travers, and as Lady Wilde was a married woman, her husband Sir William Wilde was joined in the action as a co-defendant for conformity. "I have now," concluded the Serjeant, like an actor carefully preparing his effect, "traced this friendly intimacy down to a point where it begins to be dangerous: I do not wish to aggravate the gravity of the charge in the slightest by any rhetoric or by an unconscious over-statement; you shall therefore, gentlemen of the jury, hear from Miss Travers herself what took place between her and Dr. Wilde and what she complains of." It was tried to prove from her letter that she believed that Miss Travers had had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but she would not have it.


id: chapter-002
title: chapter-002
txt: ./txt/chapter-002.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-002.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Fortunately for my readers I have received from Sir Edward Sullivan, who was a contemporary of Oscar both at school and college, an exceedingly vivid and interesting pen-picture of the lad, one of those astounding masterpieces of portraiture only to be produced by the plastic sympathies of boyhood and the intimate intercourse of years lived in common. "It was some little time before he left Portora that the boys got to know of his full name, Oscar Fingal O''Flahertie Wills Wilde. "Until the last year of my school life at Portora," he said to me once, "I had nothing like the reputation of my brother Willie. Dr. Steele had called me into his study to tell me the great news; he was very glad, he said, and insisted that it was all due to my last year''s hard work.


id: chapter-003
title: chapter-003
txt: ./txt/chapter-003.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-003.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Sir Edward Sullivan writes me that when Oscar matriculated at Trinity he was already "a thoroughly good classical scholar of a brilliant type," and he goes on to give an invaluable snap-shot of him at this time; a likeness, in fact, the chief features of which grew more and more characteristic as the years went on. The Trinity Don whom I have already quoted about Oscar''s school-days sends me a rather severe critical judgment of him as a student. In 1878 Oscar won a First Class in "Greats." In this same Trinity term, 1878, he further distinguished himself by gaining the Newdigate prize for English verse with his poem "Ravenna," which he recited at the annual Commemoration in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26th. "Frank," he cried reprovingly, laughing at the same time delightfully, "I was a great talker at school.


id: chapter-004
title: chapter-004
txt: ./txt/chapter-004.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-004.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  It was natural that Oscar Wilde, with his eager sponge-like receptivity, should receive the best academic education of his time, and should better that by travel. We all get something like the education we desire, and Oscar Wilde, it always seemed to me, was over-educated, had learned, that is, too much from books and not enough from life and had thought too little for himself; but my readers will be able to judge of this for themselves. But no one will understand Oscar Wilde who for a moment loses sight of the fact that he was a pagan born: as Gautier says, "One for whom the visible world alone exists," endowed with all the Greek sensuousness and love of plastic beauty; a pagan, like Nietzsche and Gautier, wholly out of sympathy with Christianity, one of "the Confraternity of the faithless who cannot believe,"[5] to whom a sense of sin and repentance are symptoms of weakness and disease.


id: chapter-005
title: chapter-005
txt: ./txt/chapter-005.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-005.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  If one compares this lecture with Oscar''s on "The English Renaissance of Art," delivered in New York only a year before, and with Whistler''s well-known opinions, it is impossible not to admit that the charge was justified. The long newspaper wrangle between the two was brought to a head in 1885, when Whistler gave his famous Ten o''clock discourse on Art. This lecture was infinitely better than any of Oscar Wilde''s. Unperturbed by Whistler''s attacks, Oscar went on lecturing about the country on "Personal Impressions of America," and in August crossed again to New York to see his play "Vera" produced by Marie Prescott at the Union Square Theatre. It was on this visit to Lady Wilde, or a later one, that I first heard of that other poem of Oscar, "The Harlot''s House," which was also said to have been written in Paris.


id: chapter-006
title: chapter-006
txt: ./txt/chapter-006.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-006.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  He took the artist''s view of life which Goethe was the first to state and indeed in youth had overstated with an astonishing persuasiveness: "the beautiful is more than the good," said Goethe; "for it includes the good." Oscar Wilde stopped where the religion of Goethe began; he was far more of a pagan and individualist than the great German; he lived for the beautiful and extraordinary, but not for the Good and still less for the Whole; he acknowledged no moral obligation; in commune bonis was an ideal which never said anything to him; he cared nothing for the common weal; he held himself above the mass of the people with an Englishman''s extravagant insularity and aggressive pride. "The artist''s view of life is the only possible one," Oscar used to say, "and should be applied to everything, most of all to religion and morality.


id: chapter-007
title: chapter-007
txt: ./txt/chapter-007.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-007.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The conditions of English society being what they are, it is all but impossible at first to account for the rapidity of Oscar Wilde''s social success; yet if we tell over his advantages and bring one or two into the account which have not yet been reckoned, we shall find almost every element that conduces to popularity. These admirers and supporters praised and defended Oscar Wilde from the beginning with the persistence and courage of men who if they don''t hang together are likely to hang separately. It was the passionate support of these men in the first place which made Oscar Wilde notorious and successful. But no one who knows the facts will deny that these men are prodigiously influential in London in all artistic and literary matters, and it was their constant passionate support which lifted Oscar Wilde so quickly to eminence.


id: chapter-008
title: chapter-008
txt: ./txt/chapter-008.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-008.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The articles which he wrote on "The Decay of Lying," "The Critic as Artist," and "Pen, Pencil and Poison"; in fact, all the papers which in 1891 were gathered together and published in book form under the title of "Intentions," had about them the stamp of originality. The first startling sign of this gradual change was the publication in Lippincott''s Magazine of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It was attacked immediately in The Daily Chronicle, a liberal paper usually distinguished for a certain leaning in favour of artists and men of letters, as a "tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French decadents--a poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction." When Oscar republished "The Picture of Dorian Gray" in book form in April, 1891, he sent me a large paper copy and with the copy he wrote a little note, asking me to tell him what I thought of the book.


id: chapter-009
title: chapter-009
txt: ./txt/chapter-009.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-009.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Grimthorpe cannot remember a single word Oscar said: "It was all delightful," he declares, "a play of genial humour over every topic that came up, like sunshine dancing on waves." But at his best Oscar Wilde never dropped the tone of good society: he could afford to give place to others; he was equipped at all points: no subject came amiss to him: he saw everything from a humorous angle, and dazzled one now with word-wit, now with the very stuff of merriment. It was strange, he thought, that the greatest man had written the worst biography; Plato made of Socrates a mere phonograph, into which he talked his own theories: Renan did better work, and Boswell, the humble loving friend, the least talented of the three, did better still, though being English, he had to keep to the surface of things and leave the depths to be divined.


id: chapter-010
title: chapter-010
txt: ./txt/chapter-010.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-010.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Oscar was drawn by the lad''s personal beauty, and enormously affected besides by Lord Alfred Douglas'' name and position: he was a snob as only an English artist can be a snob; he loved titular distinctions, and Douglas is one of the few great names in British history with the gilding of romance about it. Lord Alfred Douglas'' boldness gave Oscar outrecuidance, an insolent arrogance: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in aristocratic disdain. Again and again Lord Alfred Douglas flaunted acquaintance with youths of the lowest class; but no one knew him or paid much attention to him; Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, was already a famous personage whose every movement provoked comment. Though I saw but little of Oscar during the first year or so of his intimacy with Lord Alfred Douglas, one scene from this time filled me with suspicion and an undefined dread.


id: chapter-011
title: chapter-011
txt: ./txt/chapter-011.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-011.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  A year or so after the first meeting between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas I heard that they were being pestered on account of some amorous letters which had been stolen from them. I did not like several of Oscar''s particular friends, and I had a special dislike for the father of Lord Alfred Douglas. A little later a man called Wood told me he had found some letters which I had written to Lord Alfred Douglas in a suit of clothes which Lord Alfred had given to him. "Some time afterwards a man named Allen called upon me one night in Tite Street, and said he had got a letter of mine which I ought to have. ''I suppose you mean that beautiful letter of mine to Lord Alfred Douglas,'' I said. "Only Queensberry," said someone, "swearing he''ll stop Oscar Wilde going about with that son of his, Alfred Douglas."


id: chapter-012
title: chapter-012
txt: ./txt/chapter-012.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-012.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "I''ll bring it to you, Frank, but there''s nothing in it." A day or two later he showed me the letter, and after I had read it he produced a copy of the telegram which Lord Alfred Douglas had sent to his father in reply. A little later Oscar told me that Queensberry accompanied by a friend had called on him. "I said to him, ''I suppose, Lord Queensberry, you have come to apologise for the libellous letter you wrote about me?'' All "people of importance" agreed that he would lose his case against Queensberry; "no English jury would give Oscar Wilde a verdict against anyone," was the expert opinion. I am not certain and my notes do not tell me whether Bosie Douglas came in with Oscar or a little later, but he heard the greater part of our talk.


id: chapter-013
title: chapter-013
txt: ./txt/chapter-013.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-013.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When I pointed out to him that the defence was growing bolder--it was announced one morning in the newspapers that Lord Queensberry, instead of pleading paternal privilege and minimising his accusation, was determined to justify the libel and declare that it was true in every particular--Oscar could only say weakly: While waiting for the judge, the buzz of talk in the court grew loud; everybody agreed that the presence of Sir Edward Clarke gave Oscar an advantage. The libel was in the form of a card which Lord Queensberry had left at a club to which Mr. Oscar Wilde belonged: it could not be justified unless the statements written on the card were true. Mr. Carson brought out that Oscar Wilde was forty years of age and Lord Alfred Douglas twenty-four. Mr. Carson read another letter from Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, which paints their relations with extraordinary exactness.


id: chapter-014
title: chapter-014
txt: ./txt/chapter-014.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-014.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  It was apparent from his letter to his son (which I published in a previous chapter), and from the fact that he called at Oscar Wilde''s house that Lord Queensberry at the beginning did not believe in the truth of his accusations; he set them forth as a violent man sets forth hearsay and suspicion, knowing that as a father he could do this with impunity, and accordingly at first he pleaded privilege. I have spoken again and again in the course of this narrative of Oscar''s enemies, asserting that the English middle-class as puritans detested his attitude and way of life, and if some fanatic or representative of the nonconformist conscience had hunted up evidence against Wilde and brought him to ruin there would have been nothing extraordinary in a vengeance which might have been regarded as a duty.


id: chapter-015
title: chapter-015
txt: ./txt/chapter-015.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-015.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Oscar Wilde was committed on the 19th of April; a "true bill" was found against him by the grand jury on the 24th; and, as the case was put down for trial at the Old Bailey almost immediately, a postponement was asked for till the May sessions, on the ground first that the defence had not had time to prepare their case and further, that in the state of popular feeling at the moment, Mr. Wilde would not get a fair and impartial trial. He laid stress on the fact that Mr. Wilde had himself brought the charge against Lord Queensberry which had provoked the whole investigation: "on March 30th, Mr. Wilde," he said, "knew the catalogue of accusations"; and he asked: did the jury believe that, if he had been guilty, he would have stayed in England and brought about the first trial? Mr. Gill examined him at length on the two poems which Lord Alfred Douglas had contributed to The Chameleon, which Mr. Wilde had called "beautiful." The first was in "Praise of Shame," the second was one called "Two Loves." Sir Edward Clarke, interposing, said:


id: chapter-016
title: chapter-016
txt: ./txt/chapter-016.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-016.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Sir Edward Clarke tore this pretext to pieces, and Mr. Justice Wills brought the matter to a conclusion by saying that he was in possession of all the evidence that had been taken at the previous trials, and his opinion was that the two defendants should be tried separately. Sir Edward Clarke then applied that the case of Mr. Wilde should be taken first as his name stood first on the indictment, and as the first count was directed against him and had nothing to do with Taylor.... Thereupon Sir Edward Clarke pressed that the trial of Mr. Oscar Wilde should stand over till the next sessions. Sir Edward Clarke then got up and said that as it was getting rather late, perhaps after the second jury had disagreed as to Mr. Wilde''s guilt-Examining Oscar as to his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, Sir Frank Lockwood wanted to know whether he thought them "decent"?


id: chapter-017
title: chapter-017
txt: ./txt/chapter-017.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-017.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "I don''t like to," he said, "it is all so dreadful--and ugly and painful, I would rather not think of it," and he turned away despairingly. The cold chilled me through; I began standing first on one foot and then on the other, racking my brains as to what they were going to do to me, wondering why I was being punished like this, and how long it would last; you know the thoughts fear-born that plague the mind.... "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.


id: chapter-018
title: chapter-018
txt: ./txt/chapter-018.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-018.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  A little later I heard that the governor of the prison had been changed, that Oscar had got books and writing materials, and was allowed to have the gas burning in his cell to a late hour when it was turned down but not out. Later still I was told that Oscar had begun to write "De Profundis" in prison, and I was very hopeful about that too: no news could have given me greater pleasure. "Oscar Wilde," I said to him, "is just about to face life again: he is more than half reconciled to his wife; he has begun a book, is shouldering the burden. In despair, and knowing that George Wyndham had had a great liking for Oscar, and admiration for his high talent, I asked him to lunch at the Savoy; laid the matter before him, and begged him to give me his name.


id: chapter-019
title: chapter-019
txt: ./txt/chapter-019.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-019.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  A little later I heard on good authority a story which Oscar afterwards confirmed, that when he left Reading Gaol the correspondent of an American paper offered him 1,000 for an interview dealing with his prison life and experiences, but he felt it beneath his dignity to take his sufferings to market. That unpublished portion of "De Profundis" is in essence, from beginning to end, one long curse of Lord Alfred Douglas, an indictment apparently impartial, particularly at first; but in reality a bitter and merciless accusation, showing in Oscar Wilde a curious want of sympathy even with the man he said he loved. I must quote a few paragraphs of this letter; because it shows how prison had deepened Oscar Wilde, how his own suffering had made him, as Shakespeare says, "pregnant to good pity," and also because it tells us what life was like in an English prison in our time.


id: chapter-020
title: chapter-020
txt: ./txt/chapter-020.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-020.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  But in reality the high thoughts he had lived with, were not lost; his lips had been touched by the divine fire; his eyes had seen the world-wonder of sympathy, pity and love and, strangely enough, this higher vision helped, as we shall soon see, to shake his individuality from its centre, and thus destroyed his power of work and completed his soul-ruin. An interesting comment would follow on some doing of the day, a skit on some accepted belief or a parody of some pretentious solemnity, a winged word on a new book or a new author, and when everyone was smiling with amused enjoyment, the fine eyes would become introspective, the beautiful voice would take on a grave music and Oscar would begin a story, a story with symbolic second meaning or a glimpse of new thought, and when all were listening enthralled, of a sudden the eyes would dance, the smile break forth again like sunshine and some sparkling witticism would set everyone laughing.


id: chapter-021
title: chapter-021
txt: ./txt/chapter-021.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-021.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  The more I considered the matter, the more clearly I saw, or thought I saw, that the only chance of salvation for Oscar was to get him to work, to give him some purpose in life, and the reader should remember here that at this time I had not read "De Profundis" and did not know that Oscar in prison had himself recognised this necessity. "A base sophism, Frank, mere sophistry, as you know: a good lunch is better than a bad one for any living man." His second fall after leaving prison had put him "at war with himself." This is, I think, the very heart of truth about his soul; the song of sorrow, of pity and renunciation was not his song, and the experience of suffering prevented him from singing the delight of life and the joy he took in beauty.


id: chapter-022
title: chapter-022
txt: ./txt/chapter-022.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-022.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "Of course it will," I replied laughing; but a day or two later he was again embarrassed, and again told me it was money, and then he confessed to me that he was afraid at first I should not have paid all his debts, if I had known how much they were, and so he thought by telling me of them little by little, he would make sure at least of something. "Oh, don''t," he cried, "don''t," and he looked at me with tears filling his eyes; "you don''t know, Frank, what a great romantic passion is." There is no comparison, I tell you, between the boy and the girl; I say again deliberately, you don''t know what a great romantic passion is or the high unselfishness of true love." Oh, Frank, believe me, you don''t know what a great romantic passion is."


id: chapter-023
title: chapter-023
txt: ./txt/chapter-023.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-023.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  "You remember those words of Vergil, Frank--per amica silentia lun--they always seem to me indescribably beautiful; the most magic line about the moon ever written, except Browning''s in the poem in which he mentioned Keats--''him even.'' I love that ''amica silentia.'' What a beautiful nature the man had who could feel ''the friendly silences of the moon.''" "Imagine a rou of forty-five who is married; incorrigible, of course, Frank, a great noble who gets the person he is in love with to come and stay with him in the country. "Perhaps I shall, Frank, one of these days, but now I am thinking of some poetry, a ''Ballad of a Fisher Boy,'' a sort of companion to ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol,'' in which I sing of liberty instead of prison, joy instead of sorrow, a kiss instead of an execution. "Oh, yes, Frank, of course; but how could Shakespeare with his beautiful nature love a woman to that mad excess?"


id: chapter-024
title: chapter-024
txt: ./txt/chapter-024.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-024.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  A little later I was called to Monte Carlo and went for a few days, leaving Oscar, as he said, perfectly happy, with good food, excellent champagne, absinthe and coffee, and his simple fisher friends. I believe, too, that the time is already come when the better law might be put in force, and above all, I condemn punishment which strikes a man, an artist like you, who has done beautiful and charming things as if he had done nothing. "Of course everything can be argued, Frank; but I hold to my conviction: the best minds even now don''t condemn us, and the world is becoming more tolerant.[31] I didn''t justify myself in court because I was told I should be punished lightly if I respected the common prejudices, and when I tried to speak afterwards the judge would not let me."


id: chapter-025
title: chapter-025
txt: ./txt/chapter-025.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-025.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  You know he wanted me to stay with him at Gland in Switzerland, begged me to come, said he would do everything for me. He begged me so cordially not to go that I stayed on; but in a little while I noticed that the beer got less and less in quantity, and one day when I ventured to ask for a second bottle at lunch he told me that it cost a great deal and that he could not afford it. One day he told me frankly that Lord Alfred Douglas had come into a fortune of 15,000 or 20,000, "and," he added, "of course he''s always able to get money. Of course you know in the old days when his plays were being given in London he was rich and gave me some money, and now he says I ought to settle a large sum on him; I think it ridiculous, don''t you?"


id: chapter-026
title: chapter-026
txt: ./txt/chapter-026.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-026.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  I could not say now whether I answered it or not: it made me impatient; his friends must have known that I owed Oscar nothing; but later I received a telegram from Ross saying that Oscar was not expected to live. As it was I sent for my friend, Bell, gave him some money and a cheque, and begged him to go across and let me know if Oscar were really in danger, which I could hardly believe. Ross went to Paris in October: as soon as he saw Oscar, he was shocked by the change in his appearance: he insisted on taking him to a doctor; but to his surprise the doctor saw no ground for immediate alarm: if Oscar would only stop drinking wine and a fortiori spirits, he might live for years: absinthe was absolutely forbidden.


id: chapter-027
title: chapter-027
txt: ./txt/chapter-027.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-027.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  When to the sessions of sad memory I summon up the spirits of those whom I have met in the world and loved, men famous and men of unfulfilled renown, I miss no one so much as I miss Oscar Wilde. But the lovable and joyous things are to me the priceless things, and the most charming man I have ever met was assuredly Oscar Wilde. One last word on Oscar Wilde''s place in English literature. In it, and by the spirit of Jesus which breathes through it, Oscar Wilde has done much, not only to reform English prisons, but to abolish them altogether, for they are as degrading to the intelligence as they are harmful to the soul. The English drove Byron and Shelley and Keats into exile and allowed Chatterton, Davidson and Middleton to die of misery and destitution; but they treated none of their artists and seers with the malevolent cruelty they showed to Oscar Wilde.


id: chapter-028
title: chapter-028
txt: ./txt/chapter-028.txt
cache: ./cache/chapter-028.txt
extension: .txt
mime: text/plain
summary:
  Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin and public infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is often with me, and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt should for ever take the place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me; and you yourself will, I think, feel in your heart that to write to me as I lie in the loneliness of prison life is better than to publish my letters without my permission, or to dedicate poems to me unasked, though the world will know nothing of whatever words of grief or passion, of remorse or indifference, you may choose to send as your answer or your appeal.


