Shortly before he came out of prison, one of Oscar's intimates told me
he was destitute, and begged me to get him some clothes. I took the name
of his tailor and ordered two suits. The tailor refused to take the
order: he was not going to make clothes for Oscar Wilde. I could not
trust myself to talk to the man and therefore sent my assistant editor
and friend, Mr. Blanchamp, to have it out with him. The tradesman soul
yielded to the persuasiveness of cash in advance. I sent Oscar the
clothes and a cheque, and shortly after his release got a letter[7]
thanking me.
A little later I heard on good authority a story which Oscar 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. He thought it better to borrow than to earn.
He is partly to be excused, perhaps, when one remembers that he had
still some pounds left of the large sums given him before his
condemnation, by Miss S----, Ross, More Adey, and others. Still his
refusal of such a sum as that offered by the New York paper shows how
utterly contemptuous he was of money, even at a moment when one would
have thought money would have been his chief preoccupation. He always
lived in the day and rather heedlessly.
As soon as he left prison he crossed with some friends to France, and
went to stay at the Hotel de la Plage at Berneval, a quiet little
village near Dieppe. M. André Gide, who called on him there almost as
soon as he arrived, gives a fair mental picture of him at this time. He
tells how delighted he was to find in him the "Oscar Wilde of old," no
longer the sensualist puffed out with pride and good living, but "the
sweet Wilde" of the days before 1891. "I found myself taken back, not
two years," he says, "but four or five. There was the same dreamy look,
the same amused smile, the same voice."
He told M. Gide that prison had completely changed him, had taught him
the meaning of pity. "You know," he went on, "how fond I used to be of
'Madame Bovary,' but Flaubert would not admit pity into his work, and
that is why it has a petty and restrained character about it. It is the
sense of pity by means of which a work gains in expanse, and by which
it opens up a boundless horizon. Do you know, my dear fellow, it was
pity which prevented my killing myself? During the first six months in
prison I was dreadfully unhappy, so utterly miserable that I wanted to
kill myself; but what kept me from doing so was looking at the others,
and seeing that they were as unhappy as I was, and feeling sorry for
them. Oh dear! what a wonderful thing pity is, and I never knew it."
He was speaking in a low voice without any excitement.
"Have you ever learned how wonderful a thing pity is? For my part I
thank God every night, yes, on my knees I thank God for having taught it
to me. I went into prison with a heart of stone, thinking only of my own
pleasure; but now my heart is utterly broken--pity has entered into my
heart. I have learned now that pity is the greatest and the most
beautiful thing in the world. And that is why I cannot bear ill-will
towards those who caused my suffering and those who condemned me; no,
nor to anyone, because without them I should not have known all that.
Alfred Douglas writes me terrible letters. He says he does not
understand me, that he does not understand that I do not wish everyone
ill, and that everyone has been horrid to me. No, he does not understand
me. He cannot understand me any more. But I keep on telling him that in
every letter: we cannot follow the same road. He has his and it is
beautiful--I have mine. His is that of Alcibiades; mine is now that of
St. Francis of Assisi."
How much of this is sincere and how much merely imagined and stated in
order to incarnate the new ideal to perfection would be hard to say. The
truth is not so saintly simple as the christianised Oscar would have us
believe. The unpublished portions of "De Profundis" which were read out
in the Douglas-Ransome trial prove, what all his friends know, that
Oscar Wilde found it impossible to forgive or forget what seemed to him
personal ill-treatment. There are beautiful pages in "De Profundis,"
pages of sweetest Christlike resignation and charity and no doubt in a
certain mood Oscar was sincere in writing them. But there was another
mood in him, more vital and more enduring, if not so engaging, a mood in
which he saw himself as one betrayed and sacrificed and abandoned, and
then he attributed his ruin wholly to his friend and did not hesitate to
speak of him as the "Judas" whose shallow selfishness and imperious
ill-temper and unfulfilled promises of monetary help had driven a great
man to disaster.
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. Those who would know Oscar Wilde as
he really was will read that piece of rhetoric with care enough to
notice that he reiterates the charge of shallow selfishness with such
venom, that he discovers his own colossal egotism and essential hardness
of heart. "Love," we are told, "suffereth long and is kind ... beareth
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things"--that sweet, generous, all-forgiving tenderness of love was not
in the pagan, Oscar Wilde, and therefore even his deepest passion never
won to complete reconciliation and ultimate redemption.
In this same talk with M. Gide, Oscar is reported to have said that he
had known beforehand that a catastrophe was unavoidable; "there was but
one end possible.... That state of things could not last; there had to
be some end to it."
This view I believe is Gide's and not Oscar's. In any case I am sure
that my description of him before the trials as full of insolent
self-assurance is the truer truth. Of course he must have had
forebodings; he was warned as I've related, again and again; but he
took character-colour from his associates and he met Queensberry's first
attempts at attack with utter disdain. He did not realise his danger at
all. Gide reports him more correctly as adding:
"Prison has completely changed me. I was relying on it for that--Douglas
is terrible. He cannot understand that--cannot understand that I am not
taking up the same existence again. He accuses the others of having
changed me."
I may publish here part of a letter of a prison warder which Mr. Stuart
Mason reproduced in his excellent little book on Oscar Wilde. He says:
"No more beautiful life had any man lived, no more beautiful life could
any man live than Oscar Wilde lived during the short period I knew him
in prison. He wore upon his face an eternal smile; sunshine was on his
face, sunshine of some sort must have been in his heart. People say he
was not sincere: he was the very soul of sincerity when I knew him. If
he did not continue that life after he left prison, then the forces of
evil must have been too strong for him. But he tried, he honestly tried,
and in prison he succeeded."
All this seems to me in the main, true. Oscar's gay vivacity would have
astonished any stranger. Besides, the regular hours and scant plain food
of prison had improved his health and the solitude and suffering had
lent him a deeper emotional life. But there was an intense bitterness in
him, a profound underlying sense of injury which came continually to
passionate expression. Yet as soon as the miserable petty persecution of
the prison was lifted from him, all the joyous gaiety and fun of his
nature bubbled up irresistibly. There was no contradiction in this
complexity. A man can hold in himself a hundred conflicting passions and
impulses without confusion. At this time the dominant chord in Oscar was
pity for others.
To my delight the world had evidence of this changed Oscar Wilde in a
very short time. On May 28th, a few days after he left prison, there
appeared in _The Daily Chronicle_ a letter more than two columns in
length, pleading for the kindlier treatment of little children in
English prisons. The letter was written because Warder Martin[8] of
Reading prison had been dismissed by the Commissioners for the dreadful
crime of "having given some sweet biscuits to a little hungry child."...
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. Oscar wrote:
"I saw the three children myself on the Monday preceding my release.
They had just been convicted, and were standing in a row in the central
hall in their prison dress carrying their sheets under their arms,
previous to their being sent to the cells allotted to them.... They were
quite small children, the youngest--the one to whom the warder gave the
biscuits--being a tiny chap, for whom they had evidently been unable to
find clothes small enough to fit. I had, of course, seen many children
in prison during the two years during which I was myself confined.
Wandsworth prison, especially, contained always a large number of
children. But the little child I saw on the afternoon of Monday, the
17th, at Reading, was tinier than any one of them. I need not say how
utterly distressed I was to see these children at Reading, for I knew
the treatment in store for them. The cruelty that is practised by day
and night on children in English prisons is incredible except to those
that have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system.
"People nowadays do not understand what cruelty is.... Ordinary cruelty
is simply stupidity.
"The prison treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not
understanding the peculiar psychology of the child's nature. A child can
understand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent, or
guardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it
cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by society. It cannot
realise what society is....
"The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless. I remember once in
Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell
opposite mine a small boy. Two warders--not unkindly men--were talking
to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some
useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other
was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer
terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The next
morning I heard him at breakfast time crying, and calling to be let out.
His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deep
voice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet. Yet he was not
even convicted of whatever little offence he had been charged with. He
was simply on remand. That I knew by his wearing his own clothes, which
seemed neat enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes.
This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any,
were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorant
class as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhaps
remit whatever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call this 'not
sending a child to prison.' It is of course a stupid view on their part.
To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after conviction
is not a subtlety of position he can comprehend. To him the horrible
thing is to be there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be a
horrible thing for him to be there at all.
"This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grown
man also, is of course intensified beyond power of expression by the
solitary cellular system of our prisons. Every child is confined to its
cell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. This is the
appalling thing. To shut up a child in a dimly lit cell for twenty-three
hours out of the twenty-four is an example of the cruelty of stupidity.
If an individual, parent or guardian, did this to a child, he would be
severely punished....
"The second thing from which a child suffers in prison is hunger. The
food that is given to it consists of a piece of usually badly baked
prison bread and a tin of water for breakfast at half past seven. At
twelve o'clock it gets dinner, composed of a tin of coarse Indian meal
stirabout, and at half past five it gets a piece of dry bread and a tin
of water for its supper. This diet in the case of a strong man is always
productive of illness of some kind, chiefly, of course, diarrhoea,
with its attendant weakness. In fact, in a big prison, astringent
medicines are served out regularly by the warders as a matter of course.
A child is as a rule incapable of eating the food at all. Anyone who
knows anything about children knows how easily a child's digestion is
upset by a fit of crying, or trouble and mental distress of any kind. A
child who has been crying all day long and perhaps half the night, in a
lonely, dimly lit cell, and is preyed upon by terror, simply cannot eat
food of this coarse, horrible kind. In the case of the little child to
whom Warder Martin gave the biscuits, the child was crying with hunger
on Tuesday morning, and utterly unable to eat the bread and water served
to it for breakfast.
"Martin went out after the breakfast had been served, and bought the few
sweet biscuits for the child rather than see it starving. It was a
beautiful action on his part, and was so recognised by the child, who,
utterly unconscious of the regulation of the Prison Board, told one of
the senior warders how kind this junior warder had been to him. The
result was, of course, a report and a dismissal.[9]
"I know Martin extremely well, and I was under his charge for the last
seven weeks of my imprisonment.... I was struck by the singular kindness
and humanity of the way in which he spoke to me and to the other
prisoners. Kind words are much in prison, and a pleasant 'good-morning'
or 'good-evening' will make one as happy as one can be in prison. He was
always gentle and considerate....
"A great deal has been talked and written lately about the contaminating
influence of prison on young children. What is said is quite true. A
child is utterly contaminated by prison life. But this contaminating
influence is not that of the prisoners. It is that of the whole prison
system--of the governor, the chaplain, the warders, the solitary cell,
the isolation, the revolting food, the rules of the Prison
Commissioners, the mode of discipline, as it is termed, of the life.
"Of course no child under fourteen years of age should be sent to prison
at all. It is an absurdity, and, like many absurdities, of absolutely
tragical results...."
This letter, I am informed, brought about some improvement in the
treatment of young children in British prisons. But in regard to adults
the British prison is still the torture chamber it was in Wilde's time;
prisoners are still treated more brutally there than anywhere else in
the civilised world; the food is the worst in Europe, insufficient
indeed to maintain health; in many cases men are only saved from death
by starvation through being sent to the infirmary. Though these facts
are well known, _Punch_, the pet organ of the British middle-class, was
not ashamed a little while ago to make a mock of some suggested reform,
by publishing a picture of a British convict, with the villainous face
of a Bill Sykes, lying on a sofa in his cell smoking a cigar with
champagne at hand. This is not altogether due to stupidity, as Oscar
tried to believe, but to reasoned selfishness. _Punch_ and the class for
which it caters would like to believe that many convicts are unfit to
live, whereas the truth is that a good many of them are superior in
humanity to the people who punish and slander them.
While waiting for his wife to join him, Oscar rented a little house, the
Châlet Bourgeat, about two hundred yards away from the hotel at
Berneval, and furnished it. Here he spent the whole of the summer
writing, bathing, and talking to the few devoted friends who visited
him from time to time. Never had he been so happy: never in such perfect
health. He was full of literary projects; indeed, no period of his whole
life was so fruitful in good work. He was going to write some Biblical
plays; one entitled "Pharaoh" first, and then one called "Ahab and
Jezebel," which he pronounced Isabelle. Deeper problems, too, were much
in his mind: he was already at work on "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," but
before coming to that let me first show how happy the song-bird was and
how divinely he sang when the dreadful cage was opened and he was
allowed to use his wings in the heavenly sunshine.
Here is a letter from him shortly after his release which is one of the
most delightful things he ever wrote. Fitly enough it was addressed to
his friend of friends, Robert Ross, and I can only say that I am
extremely obliged to Ross for allowing me to publish it:
Hotel de la Plage. Berneval, near Dieppe,
Monday night, May 31st (1897).
My dearest Robbie,
I have decided that the only way in which to get boots properly is to go
to France to receive them. The Douane charged 3 francs. How could you
frighten me as you did? The next time you order boots please come to
Dieppe to get them sent to you. It is the only way and it will be an
excuse for seeing you.
I am going to-morrow on a pilgrimage. I always wanted to be a pilgrim,
and I have decided to start early to-morrow to the shrine of Notre Dame
de Liesse. Do you know what Liesse is? It is an old word for joy. I
suppose the same as Letizia, Lætitia. I just heard to-night of the
shrine or chapel, by chance, as you would say, from the sweet woman of
the auberge, who wants me to live always at Berneval. She says Notre
Dame de Liesse is wonderful, and helps everyone to the secret of joy--I
do not know how long it will take me to get to the shrine, as I must
walk. But, from what she tells me, it will take at least six or seven
minutes to get there, and as many to come back. In fact the chapel of
Notre Dame de Liesse is just fifty yards from the Hotel. Isn't it
extraordinary? I intend to start after I have had my coffee, and then to
bathe. Need I say that this is a miracle? I wanted to go on a
pilgrimage, and I find the little grey stone chapel of Our Lady of Joy
is brought to me. It has probably been waiting for me all these purple
years of pleasure, and now it comes to meet me with Liesse as its
message. I simply don't know what to say. I wish you were not so hard to
poor heretics,[10] and would admit that even for the sheep who has no
shepherd there is a Stella Maris to guide it home. But you and More,
especially More, treat me as a Dissenter. It is very painful and quite
unjust.
Yesterday I attended Mass at 10 o'clock and afterwards bathed. So I went
into the water without being a pagan. The consequence was that I was not
tempted by either sirens or mermaidens, or any of the green-haired
following of Glaucus. I really think that this is a remarkable thing. In
my Pagan days the sea was always full of Tritons blowing conchs, and
other unpleasant things. Now it is quite different. And yet you treat me
as the President of Mansfield College; and after I had canonised you
too.
Dear boy, I wish you would tell me if your religion makes you happy. You
conceal your religion from me in a monstrous way. You treat it like
writing in the _Saturday Review_ for Pollock, or dining in Wardour
Street off the fascinating dish that is served with tomatoes and makes
men mad.[11] I know it is useless asking you, so don't tell me.
I felt an outcast in Chapel yesterday--not really, but a little in
exile. I met a dear farmer in a corn field and he gave me a seat on his
banc in church: so I was quite comfortable. He now visits me twice a
day, and as he has no children, and is rich, I have made him promise to
adopt _three_--two boys and a girl. I told him that if he wanted them,
he would find them. He said he was afraid that they would turn out
badly. I told him everyone did that. He really has promised to adopt
three orphans. He is now filled with enthusiasm at the idea. He is to go
to the _Curé_ and talk to him. He told me that his own father had fallen
down in a fit one day as they were talking together, and that he had
caught him in his arms, and put him to bed, where he died, and that he
himself had often thought how dreadful it was that if he had a fit there
was no one to catch him in his arms. It is quite clear that he must
adopt orphans, is it not?
I feel that Berneval is to be my home. I really do. Notre Dame de Liesse
will be sweet to me, if I go on my knees to her, and she will advise me.
It is extraordinary being brought here by a white horse that was a
native of the place, and knew the road, and wanted to see its parents,
now of advanced years. It is also extraordinary that I knew Berneval
existed and was arranged for me.
M. Bonnet[12] wants to build me a Châlet, 1,000 metres of ground (I
don't know how much that is--but I suppose about 100 miles) and a Châlet
with a studio, a balcony, a salle-à-manger, a huge kitchen, and three
bedrooms--a view of the sea, and trees--all for 12,000 francs--£480. If
I can write a play I am going to have it begun. Fancy one's own lovely
house and grounds in France for £480. No rent of any kind. Pray consider
this, and approve, if you think well. Of course, not till I have done my
play.
An old gentleman lives here in the hotel. He dines alone in his room,
and then sits in the sun. He came here for two days and has stayed two
years. His sole sorrow is that there is no theatre. Monsieur Bonnet is a
little heartless about this, and says that as the old gentleman goes to
bed at 8 o'clock a theatre would be of no use to him. The old gentleman
says he only goes to bed at 8 o'clock because there is no theatre. They
argued the point yesterday for an hour. I sided with the old gentleman,
but Logic sides with Monsieur Bonnet, I believe.
I had a sweet letter from the Sphinx.[13] She gives me a delightful
account of Ernest[14] subscribing to Romeike while his divorce suit was
running, and not being pleased with some of the notices. Considering the
growing appreciation of Ibsen I must say that I am surprised the notices
were not better, but nowadays everybody is jealous of everyone else,
except, of course, husband and wife. I think I shall keep this last
remark of mine for my play.
Have you got my silver spoon[15] from Reggie? You got my silver brushes
out of Humphreys,[16] who is bald, so you might easily get my spoon out
of Reggie, who has so many, or used to have. You know my crest is on it.
It is a bit of Irish silver, and I don't want to lose it. There is an
excellent substitute called Britannia metal, very much liked at the
Adelphi and elsewhere. Wilson Barrett writes, "I prefer it to silver."
It would suit dear Reggie admirably. Walter Besant writes, "I use none
other." Mr. Beerbohm Tree also writes, "Since I have tried it I am a
different actor; my friends hardly recognise me." So there is obviously
a demand for it.
I am going to write a Political Economy in my heavier moments. The first
law I lay down is, "Whenever there exists a demand, there is _no_
supply." This is the only law that explains the extraordinary contrast
between the soul of man and man's surroundings. Civilisations continue
because people hate them. A modern city is the exact opposite of what
everyone wants. Nineteenth-century dress is the result of our horror of
the style. The tall hat will last as long as people dislike it.
Dear Robbie, I wish you would be a little more considerate, and not keep
me up so late talking to you. It is very flattering to me and all that,
but you should remember that I need rest. Good-night. You will find some
cigarettes and some flowers by your bedside. Coffee is served below at 8
o'clock. Do you mind? If it is too early for you I don't at all mind
lying in bed an extra hour. I hope you will sleep well. You should as
Lloyd is not on the Verandah.[17]
TUESDAY MORNING, 9.30.
The sea and sky are opal--no horrid drawing master's line between
them--just one fishing boat, going slowly, and drawing the wind after
it. I am going to bathe.
6 O'CLOCK.
Bathed and have seen a Châlet here which I wish to take for the
season--quite charming--a splendid view: a large writing room, a dining
room, and three lovely bedrooms--besides servants' rooms and also a huge
balcony.
[In this blank space he had I don't know the scale
roughly drawn a ground plan of the drawing, but the
of the imagined Châlet.] rooms are larger than
the plan is.
1. Salle-à-manger. All on ground floor
2. Salon. with steps from balcony
3. Balcony. to ground.
The rent for the season or year is, what do you think?--£32.
Of course I must have it: I will take my meals here--separate and
reserved table: it is within two minutes walk. Do tell me to take it.
When you come again your room will be waiting for you. All I need is a
domestique. The people here are most kind.
I made my pilgrimage--the interior of the Chapel is of course a modern
horror--but there is a black image of Notre Dame de Liesse--the chapel
is as tiny as an undergraduate's room at Oxford. I hope to get the Curé
to celebrate Mass in it soon; as a rule the service is only held there
in July and August; but I want to see a Mass quite close.
There is also another thing I must write to you about.
I adore this place. The whole country is lovely, and full of forest and
deep meadow. It is simple and healthy. If I live in Paris I may be
doomed to things I don't desire. I am afraid of big towns. Here I get up
at 7.30. I am happy all day. I go to bed at 10. I am frightened of
Paris. I want to live here.
I have seen the "terrain." It is the best here, and the only one left. I
must build a house. If I could build a châlet for 12,000
francs--£500--and live in a home of my own, how happy I would be. I must
raise the money somehow. It would give me a home, quiet, retired,
healthy, and near England. If I live in Egypt I know what my life would
be. If I live in the south of Italy I know I should be idle and worse. I
want to live here. Do think over this and send me over the
architect.[18] M. Bonnet is excellent and is ready to carry out any
idea. I want a little châlet of wood and plaster walls, the wooden beams
showing and the white square of plaster diapering the framework--like, I
regret to say--Shakespeare's house--like old English sixteenth-century
farmers' houses. So your architect has me waiting for him, as he is
waiting for me.
Do you think the idea absurd?
I got the _Chronicle_, many thanks. I see the writer on
Prince--A.2.11.--does not mention my name--foolish of her--it is a
woman.
I, as you, the poem of my days, are away, am forced to write. I have
begun something that I think will be very good.
I breakfast to-morrow with the Stannards: what a great passionate,
splendid writer John Strange Winter is! How little people understand her
work! _Bootle's Baby_ is an "oeuvre symboliste"--it is really only the
style and the subject that are wrong. Pray never speak lightly of
_Bootle's Baby_--Indeed pray never speak of it at all--I never do.
Yours,
OSCAR.
Please send a _Chronicle_ to my wife.
MRS. C.M. HOLLAND,
Maison Benguerel,
Bevaix,
Pres de Neuchatel,
just marking it--and if my second letter appears, mark that.
Also cut out the letter[19] and enclose it in an envelope to:
MR. ARTHUR CRUTHENDEN,
Poste Restante, G.P.O., Reading,
with just these lines:
Dear friend,
The enclosed will interest you. There is also another letter
waiting in the post office for you from me with a little money.
Ask for it if you have not got it.
Yours sincerely,
C.3.3.
I have no one but you, dear Robbie, to do anything. Of course the letter
to Reading must go at once, as my friends come out on Wednesday morning
early.
This letter displays almost every quality of Oscar Wilde's genius in
perfect efflorescence--his gaiety, joyous merriment and exquisite
sensibility. Who can read of the little Chapel to Notre Dame de Liesse
without emotion quickly to be changed to mirth by the sunny humour of
those delicious specimens of self-advertisement: "Mr. Beerbohm Tree also
writes: 'Since I have tried it, I am a different actor, my friends
hardly recognise me.'"
This letter is the most characteristic thing Oscar Wilde ever wrote, a
thing produced in perfect health at the topmost height of happy hours,
more characteristic even than "The Importance of Being Earnest," for it
has not only the humour of that delightful farce-comedy, but also more
than a hint of the deeper feeling which was even then forming itself
into a master-work that will form part of the inheritance of men
forever.
"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" belongs to this summer of 1897. A fortunate
conjuncture of circumstances--the prison discipline excluding all
sense-indulgence, the kindness shown him towards the end of his
imprisonment and of course the delight of freedom--gave him perfect
physical health and hope and joy in work, and so Oscar was enabled for a
few brief months to do better than his best. He assured me and I believe
that the conception of "The Ballad" came to him in prison and was due to
the alleviation of his punishment and the permission accorded to him to
write and read freely--a divine fruit born directly of his pity for
others and the pity others felt for him.
"The Ballad of Reading Gaol"[20] was published in January, 1898, over
the signature of C.3.3., Oscar's number in prison. In a few weeks it ran
through dozens of editions in England and America and translations
appeared in almost every European language, which is proof not so much
of the excellence of the poem as the great place the author held in the
curiosity of men. The enthusiasm with which it was accepted in England
was astounding. One reviewer compared it with the best of Sophocles;
another said that "nothing like it has appeared in our time." No word of
criticism was heard: the most cautious called it a "simple poignant
ballad, ... one of the greatest in the English language." This praise is
assuredly not too generous. Yet even this was due to a revulsion of
feeling in regard to Oscar himself rather than to any understanding of
the greatness of his work. The best public felt that he had been
dreadfully over-punished, and made a scapegoat for worse offenders and
was glad to have the opportunity of repairing its own fault by
over-emphasising Oscar's repentance and over-praising, as it imagined,
the first fruits of the converted sinner.
"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is far and away the best poem Oscar Wilde
ever wrote; we should try to appreciate it as the future will appreciate
it. We need not be afraid to trace it to its source and note what is
borrowed in it and what is original. After all necessary qualifications
are made, it will stand as a great and splendid achievement.
Shortly before "The Ballad" was written, a little book of poetry called
"A Shropshire Lad" was published by A.E. Housman, now I believe
professor of Latin at Cambridge. There are only a hundred odd pages in
the booklet; but it is full of high poetry--sincere and passionate
feeling set to varied music. His friend, Reginald Turner, sent Oscar a
copy of the book and one poem in particular made a deep impression on
him. It is said that "his actual model for 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'
was 'The Dream of Eugene Aram' with 'The Ancient Mariner' thrown in on
technical grounds"; but I believe that Wilde owed most of his
inspiration to "A Shropshire Lad."
Here are some verses from Housman's poem and some verses from "The
Ballad":
On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
The sheep beside me graze;
And yon the gallows used to clank
Fast by the four cross ways.
A careless shepherd once would keep
The flocks by moonlight there,[21]
And high amongst the glimmering sheep
The dead men stood on air.
They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:
The whistles blow forlorn,
And trains all night groan on the rail
To men that die at morn.
There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,
Or wakes, as may betide,
A better lad, if things went right,
Than most that sleep outside.
And naked to the hangman's noose
The morning clocks will ring
A neck God made for other use
Than strangling in a string.
And sharp the link of life will snap,
And dead on air will stand
Heels that held up as straight a chap
As treads upon the land.
So here I'll watch the night and wait
To see the morning shine
When he will hear the stroke of eight
And not the stroke of nine;
And wish my friend as sound a sleep
As lads I did not know,
That shepherded the moonlit sheep
A hundred years ago.
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes,
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!
And as one sees most fearful things
In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
Hooked to the blackened beam
And heard the prayer the hangman's snare
Strangled into a scream.
And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
There are better things in "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" than those
inspired by Housman. In the last of the three verses I quote there is a
distinction of thought which Housman hardly reached.
"For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die."
There are verses, too, wrung from the heart which have a diviner
influence than any product of the intellect:
The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
By his dishonoured grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
Whom Christ came down to save.
* * * * *
This too I know--and wise were it
If each could know the same--
That every prison that men build
Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
How men their brothers maim.
With bars they blur the gracious moon,
And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of man
Ever should look upon!
The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair.
* * * * *
And he of the swollen purple throat,
And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
The Lord will not despise.
"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is beyond all comparison the greatest
ballad in English: one of the noblest poems in the language. This is
what prison did for Oscar Wilde.
When speaking to him later about this poem I remember assuming that his
prison experiences must have helped him to realise the suffering of the
condemned soldier and certainly lent passion to his verse. But he would
not hear of it.
"Oh, no, Frank," he cried, "never; my experiences in prison were too
horrible, too painful to be used. I simply blotted them out altogether
and refused to recall them."
"What about the verse?" I asked:
"We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
And in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still."
"Characteristic details, Frank, merely the _décor_ of prison life, not
its reality; that no one could paint, not even Dante, who had to turn
away his eyes from lesser suffering."
It may be worth while to notice here, as an example of the hatred with
which Oscar Wilde's name and work were regarded, that even after he had
paid the penalty for his crime the publisher and editor, alike in
England and America, put anything but a high price on his best work.
They would have bought a play readily enough because they would have
known that it would make them money, but a ballad from his pen nobody
seemed to want. The highest price offered in America for "The Ballad of
Reading Gaol" was one hundred dollars. Oscar found difficulty in getting
even £20 for the English rights from the friend who published it; yet it
has sold since by hundreds of thousands and is certain always to sell.
I must insert here part of another letter from Oscar Wilde which
appeared in _The Daily Chronicle_, 24th March, 1898, on the cruelties of
the English prison system; it was headed, "Don't read this if you want
to be happy to-day," and was signed by "The Author of 'The Ballad of
Reading Gaol.'" It was manifestly a direct outcome of his prison
experiences. The letter was simple and affecting; but it had little or
no influence on the English conscience. The Home Secretary was about to
reform (!) the prison system by appointing more inspectors. Oscar Wilde
pointed out that inspectors could do nothing but see that the
regulations were carried out. He took up the position that it was the
regulations which needed reform. His plea was irrefutable in its
moderation and simplicity: but it was beyond the comprehension of an
English Home Secretary apparently, for all the abuses pointed out by
Oscar Wilde still flourish. I can't help giving some extracts from this
memorable indictment: memorable for its reserve and sanity and complete
absence of any bitterness:
"... The prisoner who has been allowed the smallest privilege dreads the
arrival of the inspectors. And on the day of any prison inspection the
prison officials are more than usually brutal to the prisoners. Their
object is, of course, to show the splendid discipline they maintain.
"The necessary reforms are very simple. They concern the needs of the
body and the needs of the mind of each unfortunate prisoner.
"With regard to the first, there are three permanent punishments
authorised by law in English prisons:
"1. Hunger.
"2. Insomnia.
"3. Disease.
"The food supplied to prisoners is entirely inadequate. Most of it is
revolting in character. All of it is insufficient. Every prisoner
suffers day and night from hunger....
"The result of the food--which in most cases consists of weak gruel,
badly baked bread, suet and water--is disease in the form of incessant
diarrhoea. This malady, which ultimately with most prisoners becomes a
permanent disease, is a recognised institution in every prison. At
Wandsworth Prison, for instance--where I was confined for two months,
till I had to be carried into hospital, where I remained for another
two months--the warders go round twice or three times a day with
astringent medicine, which they serve out to the prisoners as a matter
of course. After about a week of such treatment it is unnecessary to say
that the medicine produces no effect at all.
"The wretched prisoner is thus left a prey to the most weakening,
depressing and humiliating malady that can be conceived, and if, as
often happens, he fails from physical weakness to complete his required
evolutions at the crank, or the mill, he is reported for idleness and
punished with the greatest severity and brutality. Nor is this all.
"Nothing can be worse than the sanitary arrangements of English
prisons.... The foul air of the prison cells, increased by a system of
ventilation that is utterly ineffective, is so sickening and unwholesome
that it is not uncommon for warders, when they come into the room out of
the fresh air, and open and inspect each cell, to be violently sick....
"With regard to the punishment of insomnia, it only exists in Chinese
and English prisons. In China it is inflicted by placing the prisoner in
a small bamboo cage; in England by means of the plank bed. The object of
the plank bed is to produce insomnia. There is no other object in it,
and it invariably succeeds. And even when one is subsequently allowed a
hard mattress, as happens in the course of imprisonment, one still
suffers from insomnia. It is a revolting and ignorant punishment.
"With regard to the needs of the mind, I beg that you will allow me to
say something.
"The present prison system seems almost to have for its aim the wrecking
and the destruction of the mental faculties. The production of insanity
is, if not its object, certainly its result. That is a well-ascertained
fact. Its causes are obvious. Deprived of books, of all human
intercourse, isolated from every humane and humanising influence,
condemned to eternal silence, robbed of all intercourse with the
external world, treated like an unintelligent animal, brutalised below
the level of any of the brute-creation, the wretched man who is confined
in an English prison can hardly escape becoming insane."
This letter ended by saying that if all the reforms suggested were
carried out much would still remain to be done. It would still be
advisable to "humanise the governors of prisons, to civilise the
warders, and to Christianise the Chaplains."
This letter was the last effort of the new Oscar, the Oscar who had
manfully tried to put the prison under his feet and to learn the
significance of sorrow and the lesson of love which Christ brought into
the world.
In the beautiful pages about Jesus which form the greater part of _De
Profundis_, also written in those last hopeful months in Reading Gaol,
Oscar shows, I think, that he might have done much higher work than
Tolstoi or Renan had he set himself resolutely to transmute his new
insight into some form of art. Now and then he divined the very secret
of Jesus:
"When he says 'Forgive your enemies' it is not for the sake of the
enemy, but for one's own sake that he says so, and because love is more
beautiful than hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell all
that thou hast and give to the poor,' it is not of the state of the poor
that he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that
wealth was marring."
In many of these pages Oscar Wilde really came close to the divine
Master; "the image of the Man of Sorrows," he says, "has fascinated and
dominated art as no Greek god succeeded in doing."... And again:
"Out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth had come a personality
infinitely greater than any made by myth and legend, and one, strangely
enough, destined to reveal to the world the mystical meaning of wine and
the real beauties of the lilies of the field as none, either on
Cithæron or Enna, has ever done. The song of Isaiah, 'He is despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we
hid as it were our faces from him,' had seemed to him to prefigure
himself, and in him the prophecy was fulfilled."
In this spirit Oscar made up his mind that he would write about "Christ
as the precursor of the romantic movement in life" and about "The
artistic life considered in its relation to conduct."
By bitter suffering he had been brought to see that the moment of
repentance is the moment of absolution and self-realisation, that tears
can wash out even blood. In "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" he wrote:
And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
Became Christ's snow-white seal.
This is the highest height Oscar Wilde ever reached, and alas! he only
trod the summit for a moment. But as he says himself: "One has perhaps
to go to prison to understand that. And, if so, it may be worth while
going to prison." He was by nature a pagan who for a few months became a
Christian, but to live as a lover of Jesus was impossible to this
"Greek born out of due time," and he never even dreamed of a reconciling
synthesis....
The arrest of his development makes him a better representative of his
time: he was an artistic expression of the best English mind: a Pagan
and Epicurean, his rule of conduct was a selfish Individualism:--"Am I
my brother's keeper?" This attitude must entail a dreadful Nemesis, for
it condemns one Briton in every four to a pauper's grave. The result
will convince the most hardened that such selfishness is not a creed by
which human beings can live in society.
* * * * *
This summer of 1897 was the harvest time in Oscar Wilde's Life; and his
golden Indian summer. We owe it "De Profundis," the best pages of prose
he ever wrote, and "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," his only original poem;
yet one that will live as long as the language: we owe it also that
sweet and charming letter to Bobbie Ross which shows him in his habit as
he lived. I must still say a word or two about him in this summer in
order to show the ordinary working of his mind.
On his release, and, indeed, for a year or two later, he called himself
Sebastian Melmoth. But one had hardly spoken a half a dozen words to
him, when he used to beg to be called Oscar Wilde. I remember how he
pulled up someone who had just been introduced to him, who persisted in
addressing him as Mr. Melmoth.
"Call me Oscar Wilde," he pleaded, "Mr. Melmoth is unknown, you see."
"I thought you preferred it," said the stranger excusing himself.
"Oh, dear, no," interrupted Oscar smiling, "I only use the name Melmoth
to spare the blushes of the postman, to preserve his modesty," and he
laughed in the old delightful way.
It was always significant to me the eager delight with which he shuffled
off the new name and took up the old one which he had made famous.
An anecdote from his life in the Châlet at this time showed that the old
witty pagan in Oscar was not yet extinct.
An English lady who had written a great many novels and happened to be
staying in Dieppe heard of him, and out of kindness or curiosity, or
perhaps a mixture of both motives, wrote and invited him to luncheon. He
accepted the invitation. The good lady did not know how to talk to Mr.
Sebastian Melmoth, and time went heavily. At length she began to
expatiate on the cheapness of things in France; did Mr. Melmoth know how
wonderfully cheap and good the living was?
"Only fancy," she went on, "you would not believe what that claret you
are drinking costs."
"Really?" questioned Oscar, with a polite smile.
"Of course I get it wholesale," she explained, "but it only costs me
sixpence a quart."
"Oh, my dear lady, I'm afraid you have been cheated," he exclaimed,
"ladies should never buy wine. I'm afraid you have been sadly
overcharged."
The humour may excuse the discourtesy, but Oscar was so uniformly polite
to everyone that the incident simply shows how ineffably he had been
bored.
This summer of 1897 was the decisive period and final turning-point in
Oscar Wilde's career. So long as the sunny weather lasted and friends
came to visit him from time to time Oscar was content to live in the
Châlet Bourgeat; but when the days began to draw in and the weather
became unsettled, the dreariness of a life passed in solitude, indoors,
and without a library became insupportable. He was being drawn in two
opposite directions. I did not know it at the time; indeed he only told
me about it months later when the matter had been decided irrevocably;
but this was the moment when his soul was at stake between good and
evil. The question was whether his wife would come to him again or
whether he would yield to the solicitations of Lord Alfred Douglas and
go to live with him.
Mr. Sherard has told in his book how he brought about the first
reconciliation between Oscar and his wife; and how immediately
afterwards he received a letter from Lord Alfred Douglas threatening to
shoot him like a dog, if, by any words of his, Wilde's friendship was
lost to him, Douglas.
Unluckily Mrs. Wilde's family were against her going back to her
husband; they begged her not to go; talked to her of her duty to her
children and herself, and the poor woman hesitated. Finally her advisers
decided for her, and Mrs. Wilde wrote this decision to Oscar's
solicitors shortly before his release: Oscar's probation was to last at
least a year. I do not know enough about Mrs. Wilde and her relations
with her family and with her husband even to discuss her inaction: I
dare not criticise her: but she did not go to her husband when if she
had gone boldly she might have saved him. She knew Lord Alfred Douglas'
influence over him; knew that it had already brought him to grief. Gide
says, and Oscar himself told me afterwards, that he had come out of
prison determined not to go back to Alfred Douglas and the old life. It
seems a pity that his wife did not act promptly; she allowed herself to
believe that a time of probation was necessary. The delay wounded
Oscar, and all the while, as he told me a little later, he was resisting
an influence which had dominated his life in the past.
"I got a letter almost every day, Frank, begging me to come to
Posilippo, to the villa which Lord Alfred Douglas had rented. Every day
I heard his voice calling, 'Come, come, to sunshine and to me. Come to
Naples with its wonderful museum of bronzes and Pompeii and Pæstum, the
city of Poseidon: I am waiting to welcome you. Come.'
"Who could resist it, Frank? love calling, calling with outstretched
arms; who could stay in bleak Berneval and watch the sheets of rain
falling, falling--and the grey mist shrouding the grey sea, and think of
Naples and love and sunshine; who could resist it all? I could not,
Frank, I was so lonely and I hated solitude. I resisted as long as I
could, but when chill October came and Bosie came to Rouen for me, I
gave up the struggle and yielded."
Could Oscar Wilde have won and made for himself a new and greater life?
The majority of men are content to think that such a victory was
impossible to him. Everyone knows that he lost; but I at least believe
that he might have won. His wife was on the point of yielding, I have
since been told; on the point of complete reconciliation when she heard
that he had gone to Naples and returned to his old habit of living; a
few days made all the difference.
It was at the instigation of Lord Alfred Douglas that Oscar began the
insane action against Lord Queensberry, in which he put to hazard his
success, his position, his good name and liberty, and lost them all. Two
years later at the same tempting, he committed soul-suicide.
He was not only better in health than he had ever been; but he was
talking and writing better than ever before and full of literary
projects which would certainly have given him money and position and a
measure of happiness besides increasing his reputation. From the moment
he went to Naples he was lost, and he knew it himself; he never
afterwards wrote anything: as he used to say, he could never afterwards
face his own soul.
He could never have won up again, the world says, and shrugs careless
shoulders. It is a cheap, unworthy conclusion. Some of us still persist
in believing that Oscar Wilde might easily have won and never again been
caught in that dreadful wind which whips the victims of sensual desire
about unceasingly, driving them hither and thither without rest in that
awful place where: "Nulla speranza gli conforta mai." (No hope ever
comforts!)
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Reproduced in the Appendix.
[8] Fac-simile copies of some of the notes Oscar wrote to Warder Martin
about these children are reproduced in the Appendix. The notes were
written on scraps of paper and pushed under his cell-door; they are
among the most convincing evidences of Oscar's essential humanity and
kindness of heart.
[9] The Home Secretary, Sir Matthew White Ridley, when questioned by Mr.
Michael Davitt in the House of Commons, May 25, 1897, declared that this
dismissal of a warder for feeding a little hungry child at his own
expense was "fully justified" and a "proper step." This same Home
Secretary appointed his utterly incompetent brother to be a judge of the
High Court.
[10] The correspondent to whom Wilde writes and the other friend
referred to are Roman Catholics.
[11] This refers to a story which Wilde was much interested in at the
time.
[12] The proprietor of the hotel.
[13] The Sphinx is a nickname for Mrs. Leverson, author of "The Eleventh
Hour," and other witty novels.
[14] Ernest was her husband.
[15] The silver spoon is a proposed line for a play given by Ross to
Turner (Reggie).
[16] Wilde's solicitor in Regina v. Wilde.
[17] A reference to the "Vailima Letters" of Stevenson which Wilde read
when he was in prison.
[18] An architect who sent Wilde books on his release from prison.
[19] His letter to _The Daily Chronicle_ about Warder Martin and the
little children.
[20] The Ballad was finished in Naples and Alfred Douglas has since
declared that he helped Oscar Wilde to write it. I have no wish to
dispute this: Alfred Douglas' poetic gift was extraordinary, far greater
than Oscar Wilde's. The poem was conceived in prison and a good deal of
it was printed before Oscar went near Alfred Douglas and some of the
best stanzas in it are to be found in this earlier portion: no part of
the credit of it, in my opinion, belongs to Alfred Douglas. See Appendix
for Ross's opinion.
[21] Hanging in chains was called keeping sheep by moonlight.