Prison for Oscar Wilde, an English prison with its insufficient bad
food[1] and soul-degrading routine for that amiable, joyous, eloquent,
pampered Sybarite. Here was a test indeed; an ordeal as by fire. What
would he make of two years' hard labour in a lonely cell?
There are two ways of taking prison, as of taking most things, and all
the myriad ways between these two extremes; would Oscar be conquered by
it and allow remorse and hatred to corrupt his very heart, or would he
conquer the prison and possess and use it? Hammer or anvil--which?
Victory has its virtue and is justified of itself like sunshine; defeat
carries its own condemnation. Yet we have all tasted its bitter waters:
only "infinite virtue" can pass through life victorious, Shakespeare
tells us, and we mortals are not of infinite virtue. The myriad
vicissitudes of the struggle search out all our weaknesses; test all
our powers. Every victory shows a more difficult height to scale, a
steeper pinnacle of god-like hardship--that's the reward of victory: it
provides the hero with ever-new battle-fields: no rest for him this side
the grave.
But what of defeat? What sweet is there in its bitter? This may be said
for it; it is our great school: punishment teaches pity, just as
suffering teaches sympathy. In defeat the brave soul learns kinship with
other men, takes the rub to heart; seeks out the reason for the fall in
his own weakness, and ever afterwards finds it impossible to judge, much
less condemn his fellow. But after all no one can hurt us but ourselves;
prison, hard labour, and the hate of men; what are these if they make
you truer, wiser, kinder?
Have you come to grief through self-indulgence and good-living? Here are
months in which men will take care that you shall eat badly and lie
hard. Did you lack respect for others? Here are men who will show you no
consideration. Were you careless of others' sufferings? Here now you
shall agonize unheeded: gaolers and governors as well as black cells
just to teach you. Thank your stars then for every day's experience,
for, when you have learned the lesson of it and turned its discipline
into service, the prison shall transform itself into a hermitage, the
dungeon into a home; the burnt skilly shall be sweet in your mouth; and
your rest on the plank-bed the dreamless slumber of a little child.
And if you are an artist, prison will be more to you than this; an
astonishing vital and novel experience, accorded only to the chosen.
What will you make of it? That's the question for you. It is a wonderful
opportunity. Seen truly, a prison's more spacious than a palace; nay,
richer, and for a loving soul, a far rarer experience. Thank then the
spirit which steers men for the divine chance which has come to you;
henceforth the prison shall be your domain; in future men will not think
of it without thinking of you. Others may show them what the good things
of life do for one; you will show them what suffering can do, cold and
regretful sleepless hours and solitude, misery and distress. Others will
teach the lessons of joy. The whole vast underworld of pity and pain,
fear and horror and injustice is your kingdom. Men have drawn darkness
about you as a curtain, shrouded you in blackest night; the light in you
will shine the brighter. Always provided of course that the light is not
put out altogether.
Hammer or anvil? How would Oscar Wilde take punishment?
* * * * *
We could not know for months. Yet he was an artist by nature--that gave
one a glimmer of hope. We needed it. For outside at first there was an
icy atmosphere of hatred and contempt. The mere mention of his name was
met with expressions of disgust, or frozen silence.
One bare incident will paint the general feeling more clearly than pages
of invective or description. The day after Oscar's sentence Mr. Charles
Brookfield, who, it will be remembered, had raked together the witnesses
that enabled Lord Queensberry to "justify" his accusation; assisted by
Mr. Charles Hawtrey, the actor, gave a dinner to Lord Queensberry to
celebrate their triumph. Some forty Englishmen of good position were
present at the banquet--a feast to celebrate the ruin and degradation of
a man of genius.
Yet there are true souls in England, noble, generous hearts. I remember
a lunch at Mrs. Jeune's, where one declared that Wilde was at length
enjoying his deserts; another regretted that his punishment was so
slight, a third with precise knowledge intimated delicately and with
quiet complacence that two years' imprisonment with hard labour usually
resulted in idiocy or death: fifty per cent., it appeared, failed to win
through. It was more to be dreaded on all accounts than five years'
penal servitude. "You see it begins with starvation and solitary
confinement, and that breaks up the strongest. I think it will be
enough for our vainglorious talker." Miss Madeleine Stanley (now Lady
Middleton) was sitting beside me, her fine, sensitive face clouded: I
could not contain myself, I was being whipped on a sore.
"This must have been the way they talked in Jerusalem," I remarked,
"after the world-tragedy."
"You were an intimate friend of his, were you not?" insinuated the
delicate one gently.
"A friend and admirer," I replied, "and always shall be."
A glacial silence spread round the table, while the delicate one smiled
with deprecating contempt, and offered some grapes to his neighbour; but
help came. Lady Dorothy Nevill was a little further down the table: she
had not heard all that was said, but had caught the tone of the
conversation and divined the rest.
"Are you talking of Oscar Wilde?" she exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear you
say you are a friend. I am, too, and shall always be proud of having
known him, a most brilliant, charming man."
"I think of giving a dinner to him when he comes out, Lady Dorothy," I
said.
"I hope you'll ask me," she answered bravely. "I should be glad to come.
I always admired and liked him; I feel dreadfully sorry for him."
The delicate one adroitly changed the conversation and coffee came in,
but Miss Stanley said to me:
"I wish I had known him, there must have been great good in him to win
such friendship."
"Great charm in any case," I replied, "and that's rarer among men than
even goodness."
The first news that came to us from prison was not altogether bad. He
had broken down and was in the infirmary, but was getting better. The
brave Stewart Headlam, who had gone bail for him, had visited him, the
Stewart Headlam who was an English clergyman, and yet, wonder of
wonders, a Christian. A little later one heard that Sherard had seen
him, and brought about a reconciliation with his wife. Mrs. Wilde had
been very good and had gone to the prison and had no doubt comforted
him. Much to be hoped from all this....
For months and months the situation in South Africa took all my heart
and mind.
In the first days of January, 1896, came the Jameson Raid, and I sailed
for South Africa. I had work to do for _The Saturday Review_, absorbing
work by day and night. In the summer I was back in England, but the task
of defending the Boer farmers grew more and more arduous, and I only
heard that Oscar was going on as well as could be expected.
Some time later, after he had been transferred to Reading Gaol, bad news
leaked out, news that he was breaking up, was being punished,
persecuted. His friends came to me, asking: could anything be done? As
usual my only hope was in the supreme authority. Sir Evelyn Ruggles
Brise was the head of the Prison Commission; after the Home Secretary,
the most powerful person, the permanent official behind the
Parliamentary figure-head; the man who knew and acted behind the man who
talked. I sat down and wrote to him for an interview: by return came a
courteous note giving me an appointment.
I told him what I had heard about Oscar, that his health was breaking
down and his reason going, pointed out how monstrous it was to turn
prison into a torture-chamber. To my utter astonishment he agreed with
me, admitted, even, that an exceptional man ought to have exceptional
treatment; showed not a trace of pedantry; good brains, good heart. He
went so far as to say that Oscar Wilde should be treated with all
possible consideration, that certain prison rules which pressed very
hardly upon him should be interpreted as mildly as possible. He admitted
that the punishment was much more severe to him than it would be to an
ordinary criminal, and had nothing but admiration for his brilliant
gifts.
"It was a great pity," he said, "that Wilde ever got into prison, a
great pity."
I was pushing at an open door; besides the year or so which had elapsed
since the condemnation had given time for reflection. Still, Sir Ruggles
Brise's attitude was extraordinary, sympathetic at once and high-minded:
another true Englishman at the head of affairs: infinite hope in that
fact, and solace.
I had stuck to my text that something should be done at once to give
Oscar courage and hope; he must not be murdered or left to despair.
Sir Ruggles Brise asked me finally if I would go to Reading and report
on Oscar Wilde's condition and make any suggestion that might occur to
me. He did not know if this could be arranged; but he would see the Home
Secretary and would recommend it, if I were willing. Of course I was
willing, more than willing. Two or three days later, I got another
letter from him with another appointment, and again I went to see him.
He received me with charming kindness. The Home Secretary would be glad
if I would go down to Reading and report on Oscar Wilde's state.
"Everyone," said Sir Ruggles Brise, "speaks with admiration and delight
of his wonderful talents. The Home Secretary thinks it would be a great
loss to English literature if he were really injured by the prison
discipline. Here is your order to see him alone, and a word of
introduction to the Governor, and a request to give you all
information."
I could not speak. I could only shake hands with him in silence.
What a country of anomalies England is! A judge of the High Court a hard
self-satisfied pernicious bigot, while the official in charge of the
prisons is a man of wide culture and humane views, who has the courage
of a noble humanity.
I went to Reading Gaol and sent in my letter. I was met by the Governor,
who gave orders that Oscar Wilde should be conducted to a room where we
could talk alone. I cannot give an account of my interviews with the
Governor or the doctor; it would smack of a breach of confidence;
besides all such conversations are peculiarly personal: some people call
forth the best in us, others the worst. Without wishing to, I may have
stirred up the lees. I can only say here that I then learned for the
first time the full, incredible meaning of "Man's inhumanity to man."
In a quarter of an hour I was led into a bare room where Oscar Wilde was
already standing by a plain deal table. The warder who had come with
him then left us. We shook hands and sat down opposite to each other. He
had changed greatly. He appeared much older; his dark brown hair was
streaked with grey, particularly in front and over the ears. He was much
thinner, had lost at least thirty-five pounds, probably forty or more.
On the whole, however, he looked better physically than he had looked
for years before his imprisonment: his eyes were clear and bright; the
outlines of the face were no longer swamped in fat; the voice even was
ringing and musical; he had improved bodily, I thought; though in repose
his face wore a nervous, depressed and harassed air.
"You know how glad I am to see you, heart-glad to find you looking so
well," I began, "but tell me quickly, for I may be able to help you,
what have you to complain of; what do you want?"
For a long time he was too hopeless, too frightened to talk. "The list
of my grievances," he said, "would be without end. The worst of it is I
am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to
punish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectly
awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether
millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life
would be livable--any life," he added sadly.
"The life, then, is hard. Tell me about it."
"I don't like to," he said, "it is all so dreadful--and ugly and
painful, I would rather not think of it," and he turned away
despairingly.
"You must tell me, or I shall not be able to help you." Bit by bit I won
the confession from him.
"At first it was a fiendish nightmare; more horrible than anything I had
ever dreamt of; from the first evening when they made me undress before
them and get into some filthy water they called a bath and dry myself
with a damp, brown rag and put on this livery of shame. The cell was
appalling: I could hardly breathe in it, and the food turned my stomach;
the smell and sight of it were enough: I did not eat anything for days
and days, I could not even swallow the bread; and the rest of the food
was uneatable; I lay on the so-called bed and shivered all night
long.... Don't ask me to speak of it, please. Words cannot convey the
cumulative effect of a myriad discomforts, brutal handling and slow
starvation. Surely like Dante I have written on my face the fact that I
have been in hell. Only Dante never imagined any hell like an English
prison; in his lowest circle people could move about; could see each
other, and hear each other groan: there was some change, some human
companionship in misery...."
"When did you begin to eat the food?" I asked.
"I can't tell, Frank," he replied. "After some days I got so hungry I
had to eat a little, nibble at the outside of the bread, and drink some
of the liquid; whether it was tea, coffee or gruel, I could not tell. As
soon as I really ate anything it produced violent diarrhoea and I was
ill all day and all night. From the beginning I could not sleep. I grew
weak and had wild delusions.... You must not ask me to describe it. It
is like asking a man who has gone through fever to describe one of the
terrifying dreams. At Wandsworth I thought I should go mad; Wandsworth
is the worst: no dungeon in hell can be worse; why is the food so bad?
It even smelt bad. It was not fit for dogs."
"Was the food the worst of it?" I asked.
"The hunger made you weak, Frank; but the inhumanity was the worst of
it; what devilish creatures men are. I had never known anything about
them. I had never dreamt of such cruelties. A man spoke to me at
exercise. You know you are not allowed to speak. He was in front of me,
and he whispered, so that he could not be seen, how sorry he was for me,
and how he hoped I would bear up. I stretched out my hands to him and
cried, 'Oh, thank you, thank you.' The kindness of his voice brought
tears into my eyes. Of course I was punished at once for speaking; a
dreadful punishment. I won't think of it: I dare not. They are
infinitely cunning in malice here, Frank; infinitely cunning in
punishment.... Don't let us talk of it, it is too painful, too horrible
that men should be so brutal."
"Give me an instance," I said, "of something less painful; something
which may be bettered."
He smiled wanly. "All of it, Frank, all of it should be altered. There
is no spirit in a prison but hate, hate masked in degrading formalism.
They first break the will and rob you of hope, and then rule by fear.
One day a warder came into my cell.
"'Take off your boots,' he said.
"Of course I began to obey him; then I asked:
"'What is it? Why must I take off my boots?'
"He would not answer me. As soon as he had my boots, he said:
"'Come out of your cell.'
"'Why?' I asked again. I was frightened, Frank. What had I done? I could
not guess; but then I was often punished for nothing: what was it? No
answer. As soon as we were in the corridor he ordered me to stand with
my face to the wall, and went away. There I stood in my stocking feet
waiting. The cold chilled me through; I began standing first on one
foot and then on the other, racking my brains as to what they were going
to do to me, wondering why I was being punished like this, and how long
it would last; you know the thoughts fear-born that plague the mind....
After what seemed an eternity I heard him coming back. I did not dare to
move or even look. He came up to me; stopped by me for a moment; my
heart stopped; he threw down a pair of boots beside me, and said:
"'Go to your cell and put those on,' and I went into my cell shaking.
That's the way they give you a new pair of boots in prison, Frank;
that's the way they are kind to you."
"The first period was the worst?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, infinitely the worst! One gets accustomed to everything in
time, to the food and the bed and the silence: one learns the rules, and
knows what to expect and what to fear...."
"How did you win through the first period?" I asked.
"I died," he said quietly, "and came to life again, as a patient." I
stared at him. "Quite true, Frank. What with the purgings and the
semi-starvation and sleeplessness and, worst of all, the regret gnawing
at my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker and
weaker; my clothes hung on me; I could scarcely move. One Sunday
morning after a very bad night I could not get out of bed. The warder
came in and I told him I was ill."
"'You had better get up,' he said; but I couldn't take the good advice.
"'I can't,' I replied, 'you must do what you like with me.'
"Half an hour later the doctor came and looked in at the door. He never
came near me; he simply called out:
"'Get up; no malingering; you're all right. You'll be punished if you
don't get up,' and he went away.
"I had to get up. I was very weak; I fell off my bed while dressing, and
bruised myself; but I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to go
with the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all out
of tune in praise of their pitiless God.
"I could hardly stand up; everything kept disappearing and coming back
faintly: and suddenly I must have fallen...." He put his hand to his
head. "I woke up feeling a pain in this ear. I was in the infirmary with
a warder by me. My hand rested on a clean white sheet; it was like
heaven. I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it,
it was so smooth and cool and clean. The nurse with kind eyes said to
me:
"'Do eat something,' and gave me some thin white bread and butter.
Frank, I shall never forget it. The water came into my mouth in streams;
I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious; I was so weak I
cried," and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears.
"I shall never forget it: the warder was so kind. I did not like to tell
him I was famished; but when he went away I picked the crumbs off the
sheet and ate them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to the
edge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor and ate those
as well; the white bread was so good and I was so hungry."
"And now?" I asked, not able to stand more.
"Oh, now," he said, with an attempt to be cheerful, "of course it would
be all right if they did not take my books away from me. If they would
let me write. If only they would let me write as I wish, I should be
quite content, but they punish me on every pretext. Why do they do it,
Frank? Why do they want to make my life here one long misery?"
"Aren't you a little deaf still?" I asked, to ease the passion I felt of
intolerable pity.
"Yes," he replied, "on this side, where I fell in the chapel. I fell on
my ear, you know, and I must have burst the drum of it, or injured it
in some way, for all through the winter it has ached and it often bleeds
a little."
"But they could give you some cotton wool or something to put in it?" I
said.
He smiled a poor wan smile:
"If you think one dare disturb a doctor or a warder for an earache, you
don't know much about a prison; you would pay for it. Why, Frank,
however ill I was now," and he lowered his voice to a whisper and
glanced about him as if fearing to be overheard, "however ill I was I
would not think of sending for the doctor. Not think of it," he said in
an awestruck voice. "I have learned prison ways."
"I should rebel," I cried; "why do you let it break the spirit?"
"You would soon be broken, if you rebelled, here. Besides it is all
incidental to the _System_. The _System_! No one outside knows what that
means. It is an old story, I'm afraid, the story of man's cruelty to
man."
"I think I can promise you," I said, "that the _System_ will be altered
a little. You shall have books and things to write with, and you shall
not be harassed every moment by punishment."
"Take care," he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine,
"take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they can
do." I grew hot with indignation.
"Don't say anything, please, of what I have said to you. Promise me, you
won't say anything. Promise me. I never complained, I didn't." His
excitement was a revelation.
"All right," I replied, to soothe him.
"No, but promise me, seriously," he repeated. "You must promise me.
Think, you have my confidence, it is private what I have said." He was
evidently frightened out of self-control.
"All right," I said, "I will not tell; but I'll get the facts from the
others and not from you."
"Oh, Frank," he said, "you don't know what they do. There is a
punishment here more terrible than the rack." And he whispered to me
with white sidelong eyes: "They can drive you mad in a week, Frank."[2]
"Mad!" I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him; though he
was white and trembling.
"What about the warders?" I asked again, to change the subject, for I
began to feel that I had supped full on horrors.
"Some of them are kind," he sighed. "The one that brought me in here is
so kind to me. I should like to do something for him, when I get out.
He's quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things;
but some of them at Wandsworth were brutes.... I will not think of them
again. I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open them
again: I dare not open them," he cried pitifully.
"But you ought to tell it all," I said, "that's perhaps the purpose you
are here for: the ultimate reason."
"Oh, no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to come
here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don't
believe you could do it; I don't believe anybody would be strong enough.
Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone's strength.
Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death.
That's what two years' hard labour means. It's not the labour that's
hard. It's the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard: they
break you down body and soul. And if you resist, they drive you
crazy.... But, please! don't say I said anything; you've promised, you
know you have: you'll remember: won't you!"
I felt guilty: his insistence, his gasping fear showed me how terribly
he must have suffered. He was beside himself with dread. I ought to have
visited him sooner. I changed the subject.
"You shall have writing materials and your books, Oscar. Force yourself
to write. You are looking better than you used to look; your eyes are
brighter, your face clearer." The old smile came back into his eyes, the
deathless humour.
"I've had a rest cure, Frank," he said, and smiled feebly.
"You should give record of this life as far as you can, and of all its
influences on you. You have conquered, you know. Write the names of the
inhuman brutes on their foreheads in vitriol, as Dante did for all
time."
"No, no, I cannot: I will not: I want to live and forget. I could not, I
dare not, I have not Dante's strength, nor his bitterness; I am a Greek
born out of due time." He had said the true word at last.
"I will come again and see you," I replied. "Is there nothing else I can
do? I hear your wife has seen you. I hope you have made it up with her?"
"She tried to be kind to me, Frank," he said in a dull voice, "she was
kind, I suppose. She must have suffered; I'm sorry...." One felt he had
no sorrow to spare for others.
"Is there nothing I can do?" I asked.
"Nothing, Frank, only if you could get me books and writing materials,
if I could be allowed to use them really! But you won't say anything I
have said to you, you promise me you won't?"
"I promise," I replied, "and I shall come back in a short time to see
you again. I think you will be better then....
"Don't dread the coming out; you have friends who will work for you,
great allies--" and I told him about Lady Dorothy Nevill at Mrs. Jeune's
lunch.
"Isn't she a dear old lady?" he cried, "charming, brilliant, human
creature! She might have stepped out of a page of Thackeray, only
Thackeray never wrote a page quite dainty and charming enough. He came
near it in his 'Esmond.' Oh, I remember you don't like the book, but it
is beautifully written, Frank, in beautiful simple rhythmic English. It
sings itself to the ear. Lady Dorothy" (how he loved the title!) "was
always kind to me, but London is horrible. I could not live in London
again. I must go away out of England. Do you remember talking to me,
Frank, of France?" and he put both his hands on my shoulders, while
tears ran down his face, and sighs broke from him. "Beautiful France,
the one country in the world where they care for humane ideals and the
humane life. Ah! if only I had gone with you to France," and the tears
poured down his cheeks and our hands met convulsively.
"I'm glad to see you looking so well," I began again. "Books you shall
have; for God's sake keep your heart up, and I will come back and see
you, and don't forget you have good friends outside; lots of us!"
"Thank you, Frank; but take care, won't you, and remember your promise
not to tell."
I nodded in assent and went to the door. The warder came in.
"The interview is over," I said; "will you take me downstairs?"
"If you will not mind sitting here, sir," he said, "for a minute. I must
take him back first."
"I have been telling my friend," said Oscar to the warder, "how good you
have been to me," and he turned and went, leaving with me the memory of
his eyes and unforgettable smile; but I noticed as he disappeared that
he was thin, and looked hunched up and bowed, in the ugly ill-fitting
prison livery. I took out a bank note and put it under the blotting
paper that had been placed on the table for me. In two or three minutes
the warder came back, and as I left the room I thanked him for being
kind to my friend, and told him how kindly Oscar had spoken of him.
"He has no business here, sir," the warder said. "He's no more like one
of our reg'lars than a canary is like one of them cocky little spadgers.
Prison ain't meant for such as him, and he ain't meant for prison. He's
that soft, sir, you see, and affeckshunate. He's more like a woman, he
is; you hurt 'em without meaning to. I don't care what they say, I likes
him; and he do talk beautiful, sir, don't he?"
"Indeed he does," I said, "the best talker in the world. I want you to
look in the pad on the table. I have left a note there for you."
"Not for me, sir, I could not take it; no, sir, please not," he cried in
a hurried, fear-struck voice. "You've forgotten something, sir, come
back and get it, sir, do, please. I daren't."
In spite of my remonstrance he took me back and I had to put the note in
my pocket.
"I could not, you know, sir, I was not kind to him for that." His manner
changed; he seemed hurt.
I told him I was sure of it, sure, and begged him to believe, that if I
were able to do anything for him, at any time, I'd be glad, and gave him
my address. He was not even listening--an honest, good man, full of the
milk of human kindness. How kind deeds shine starlike in this prison of
a world. That warder and Sir Ruggles Brise each in his own place: such
men are the salt of the English world; better are not to be found on
earth.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Some years ago _The Daily Chronicle_ proved that though the general
standard of living is lower in Germany and in France than in England;
yet the prison food in France and especially in Germany is far better
than in England and the treatment of the prisoners far more humane.
[2] He was referring, I suppose, to the solitary confinement in a dark
cell, which English ingenuity has invented and according to all accounts
is as terrible as any of the tortures of the past. For those tortures
were all physical, whereas the modern Englishman addresses himself to
the brain and nerves, and finds the fear of madness more terrifying than
the fear of pain. What a pity it is that Mr. Justice Wills did not know
twenty-four hours of it, just twenty-four hours to teach him what
"adequate punishment" for sensual self-indulgence means, and adequate
punishment, too, for inhuman cruelty.