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OSCAR WILDE
HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS
BY
FRANK HARRIS
VOLUME I
[Illustration: Oscar Wilde at About Thirty]
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
29 WAVERLEY PLACE
NEW YORK CITY
MCMXVIII
Imprime en Allemagne
Printed in Germany
Copyright, 1916,
BY FRANK HARRIS
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION iii
I. Oscar's Father and Mother on Trial 1
II. Oscar Wilde as a Schoolboy 23
III. Trinity, Dublin: Magdalen, Oxford 37
IV. Formative Influences: Oscar's Poems 50
V. Oscar's Quarrel with Whistler and Marriage 73
VI. Oscar Wilde's Faith and Practice 91
VII. Oscar's Reputation and Supporters 102
VIII. Oscar's Growth to Originality About 1890 112
IX. The Summer of Success: Oscar's First Play 133
X. The First Meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas 144
XI. The Threatening Cloud Draws Nearer 156
XII. Danger Signals: the Challenge 175
XIII. Oscar Attacks Queensberry and is Worsted 202
XIV. How Genius is Persecuted in England 229
XV. The Queen _vs._ Wilde: The First Trial 261
XVI. Escape Rejected: The Second Trial and Sentence 292
VOLUME II
[Transcriber's Note: Volume II is also available on Project
Gutenberg.]
XVII. Prison and the Effects of Punishment 321
XVIII. Mitigation of Punishment; but not Release 345
XIX. His St. Martin's Summer: His Best Work 363
XX. The Results of His Second Fall: His Genius 406
XXI. His Sense of Rivalry; His Love of Life and Laziness 433
XXII. "A Great Romantic Passion!" 450
XXIII. His Judgments of Writers and of Women 469
XXIV. We Argue About His "Pet Vice" and Punishment 488
XXV. The Last Hope Lost 509
XXVI. The End 532
XXVII. A Last Word 542
Shaw's "Memories" 1-32
THE APPENDIX, 549
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME I
Oscar Wilde at About Thirty Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Dr. Sir William Wilde 22
Oscar Wilde at Twenty-Seven, as He First Appeared in America 75
Oscar Wilde 90
[Transcriber's Note: This illustration is not in the original list.]
VOLUME II
Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas About 1893 321
"Speranza": Lady Wilde as a Young Woman 358
Note to Warder Martin 576
THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE GUILTY IS STILL MORE AWE-INSPIRING
THAN THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE INNOCENT; WHAT DO WE MEN KNOW OF
INNOCENCE?
INTRODUCTION
I was advised on all hands not to write this book, and some English
friends who have read it urge me not to publish it.
"You will be accused of selecting the subject," they say, "because
sexual viciousness appeals to you, and your method of treatment lays
you open to attack.
"You criticise and condemn the English conception of justice, and
English legal methods: you even question the impartiality of English
judges, and throw an unpleasant light on English juries and the
English public--all of which is not only unpopular but will convince
the unthinking that you are a presumptuous, or at least an outlandish,
person with too good a conceit of himself and altogether too free a
tongue."
I should be more than human or less if these arguments did not give me
pause. I would do nothing willingly to alienate the few who are still
friendly to me. But the motives driving me are too strong for such
personal considerations. I might say with the Latin:
"Non me tua fervida terrent,
Dicta, ferox: Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis."
Even this would be only a part of the truth. Youth it seems to me
should always be prudent, for youth has much to lose: but I am come to
that time of life when a man can afford to be bold, may even dare to
be himself and write the best in him, heedless of knaves and fools or
of anything this world may do. The voyage for me is almost over: I am
in sight of port: like a good shipman, I have already sent down the
lofty spars and housed the captious canvas in preparation for the long
anchorage: I have little now to fear.
And the immortals are with me in my design. Greek tragedy treated of
far more horrible and revolting themes, such as the banquet of
Thyestes: and Dante did not shrink from describing the unnatural meal
of Ugolino. The best modern critics approve my choice. "All depends on
the subject," says Matthew Arnold, talking of great literature:
"choose a fitting action--a great and significant action--penetrate
yourself with the feeling of the situation: this done, everything else
will follow; for expression is subordinate and secondary."
Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the young and was put to death
for the offence. His accusation and punishment constitute surely a
great and significant action such as Matthew Arnold declared was
alone of the highest and most permanent literary value.
The action involved in the rise and ruin of Oscar Wilde is of the same
kind and of enduring interest to humanity. Critics may say that Wilde
is a smaller person than Socrates, less significant in many ways: but
even if this were true, it would not alter the artist's position; the
great portraits of the world are not of Napoleon or Dante. The
differences between men are not important in comparison with their
inherent likeness. To depict the mortal so that he takes on
immortality--that is the task of the artist.
There are special reasons, too, why I should handle this story. Oscar
Wilde was a friend of mine for many years: I could not help prizing
him to the very end: he was always to me a charming, soul-animating
influence. He was dreadfully punished by men utterly his inferiors:
ruined, outlawed, persecuted till Death itself came as a deliverance.
His sentence impeaches his judges. The whole story is charged with
tragic pathos and unforgettable lessons. I have waited for more than
ten years hoping that some one would write about him in this spirit
and leave me free to do other things, but nothing such as I propose
has yet appeared.
Oscar Wilde was greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer,
and no fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story
and paint his portrait, it seems unlikely that anyone else will do it.
English "strachery" may accuse me of attacking morality: the
accusation is worse than absurd. The very foundations of this old
world are moral: the charred ember itself floats about in space, moves
and has its being in obedience to inexorable law. The thinker may
define morality: the reformer may try to bring our notions of it into
nearer accord with the fact: human love and pity may seek to soften
its occasional injustices and mitigate its intolerable harshness: but
that is all the freedom we mortals enjoy, all the breathing-space
allotted to us.
In this book the reader will find the figure of the Prometheus-artist
clamped, so to speak, with bands of steel to the huge granitic cliff
of English puritanism. No account was taken of his manifold virtues
and graces: no credit given him for his extraordinary achievements: he
was hounded out of life because his sins were not the sins of the
English middle-class. The culprit was in[1] much nobler and better
than his judges.
Here are all the elements of pity and sorrow and fear that are
required in great tragedy.
The artist who finds in Oscar Wilde a great and provocative subject
for his art needs no argument to justify his choice. If the picture
is a great and living portrait, the moralist will be satisfied: the
dark shadows must all be there, as well as the high lights, and the
effect must be to increase our tolerance and intensify our pity.
If on the other hand the portrait is ill-drawn or ill-painted, all the
reasoning in the world and the praise of all the sycophants will not
save the picture from contempt and the artist from censure.
There is one measure by which intention as apart from accomplishment
can be judged, and one only: "If you think the book well done," says
Pascal, "and on re-reading find it strong; be assured that the man who
wrote it, wrote it on his knees." No book could have been written more
reverently than this book of mine.
FRANK HARRIS.
Nice, 1910.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [Transcriber's Note: Printer error. In the 1930 U.S. edition the
word "in" is deleted.]
OSCAR WILDE: HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS
CHAPTER I
On the 12th of December, 1864, Dublin society was abuzz with
excitement. A tidbit of scandal which had long been rolled on the
tongue in semi-privacy was to be discussed in open court, and all
women and a good many men were agog with curiosity and expectation.
The story itself was highly spiced and all the actors in it well
known.
A famous doctor and oculist, recently knighted for his achievements,
was the real defendant. He was married to a woman with a great
literary reputation as a poet and writer who was idolized by the
populace for her passionate advocacy of Ireland's claim to
self-government; "Speranza" was regarded by the Irish people as a sort
of Irish Muse.
The young lady bringing the action was the daughter of the professor
of medical jurisprudence at Trinity College, who was also the chief at
Marsh's library.
It was said that this Miss Travers, a pretty girl just out of her
teens, had been seduced by Dr. Sir William Wilde while under his care
as a patient. Some went so far as to say that chloroform had been
used, and that the girl had been violated.
The doctor was represented as a sort of Minotaur: lustful stories were
invented and repeated with breathless delight; on all faces, the joy
of malicious curiosity and envious denigration.
The interest taken in the case was extraordinary: the excitement
beyond comparison; the first talents of the Bar were engaged on both
sides; Serjeant Armstrong led for the plaintiff, helped by the famous
Mr. Butt, Q.C., and Mr. Heron, Q.C., who were in turn backed by Mr.
Hamill and Mr. Quinn; while Serjeant Sullivan was for the defendant,
supported by Mr. Sidney, Q.C., and Mr. Morris, Q.C., and aided by Mr.
John Curran and Mr. Purcell.
The Court of Common Pleas was the stage; Chief Justice Monahan
presiding with a special jury. The trial was expected to last a week,
and not only the Court but the approaches to it were crowded.
To judge by the scandalous reports, the case should have been a
criminal case, should have been conducted by the Attorney-General
against Sir William Wilde; but that was not the way it presented
itself. The action was not even brought directly by Miss Travers or by
her father, Dr. Travers, against Sir William Wilde for rape or
criminal assault, or seduction. It was a civil action brought by Miss
Travers, who claimed £2,000 damages for a libel written by Lady Wilde
to her father, Dr. Travers. The letter complained of ran as follows:--
TOWER, BRAY, May 6th.
Sir, you may not be aware of the disreputable conduct of
your daughter at Bray where she consorts with all the low
newspaper boys in the place, employing them to disseminate
offensive placards in which my name is given, and also
tracts in which she makes it appear that she has had an
intrigue with Sir William Wilde. If she chooses to disgrace
herself, it is not my affair, but as her object in insulting
me is in the hope of extorting money for which she has
several times applied to Sir William Wilde with threats of
more annoyance if not given, I think it right to inform you,
as no threat of additional insult shall ever extort money
from our hands. The wages of disgrace she has so basely
treated for and demanded shall never be given her.
JANE F. WILDE.
To Dr. Travers.
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.
The defences set up were:--
First, a plea of "No libel": secondly, that the letter did not bear
the defamatory sense imputed by the plaint: thirdly, a denial of the
publication, and, fourthly, a plea of privilege. This last was
evidently the real defence and was grounded upon facts which afforded
some justification of Lady Wilde's bitter letter.
It was admitted that for a year or more Miss Travers had done her
uttermost to annoy both Sir William Wilde and his wife in every
possible way. The trouble began, the defence stated, by Miss Travers
fancying that she was slighted by Lady Wilde. She thereupon published
a scandalous pamphlet under the title of "Florence Boyle Price, a
Warning; by Speranza," with the evident intention of causing the
public to believe that the booklet was the composition of Lady Wilde
under the assumed name of Florence Boyle Price. In this pamphlet Miss
Travers asserted that a person she called Dr. Quilp had made an
attempt on her virtue. She put the charge mildly. "It is sad," she
wrote, "to think that in the nineteenth century a lady must not
venture into a physician's study without being accompanied by a
bodyguard to protect her."
Miss Travers admitted that Dr. Quilp was intended for Sir William
Wilde; indeed she identified Dr. Quilp with the newly made knight in a
dozen different ways. She went so far as to describe his appearance.
She declared that he had "an animal, sinister expression about his
mouth which was coarse and vulgar in the extreme: the large protruding
under lip was most unpleasant. Nor did the upper part of his face
redeem the lower part. His eyes were small and round, mean and prying
in expression. There was no candour in the doctor's countenance, where
one looked for candour." Dr. Quilp's quarrel with his victim, it
appeared, was that she was "unnaturally passionless."
The publication of such a pamphlet was calculated to injure both Sir
William and Lady Wilde in public esteem, and Miss Travers was not
content to let the matter rest there. She drew attention to the
pamphlet by letters to the papers, and on one occasion, when Sir
William Wilde was giving a lecture to the Young Men's Christian
Association at the Metropolitan Hall, she caused large placards to be
exhibited in the neighbourhood having upon them in large letters the
words "Sir William Wilde and Speranza." She employed one of the
persons bearing a placard to go about ringing a large hand bell which
she, herself, had given to him for the purpose. She even published
doggerel verses in the _Dublin Weekly Advertiser_, and signed them
"Speranza," which annoyed Lady Wilde intensely. One read thus:--
Your progeny is quite a pest
To those who hate such "critters";
Some sport I'll have, or I'm blest
I'll fry the Wilde breed in the West
Then you can call them Fritters.
She wrote letters to _Saunders Newsletter_, and even reviewed a book
of Lady Wilde's entitled "The First Temptation," and called it a
"blasphemous production." Moreover, when Lady Wilde was staying at
Bray, Miss Travers sent boys to offer the pamphlet for sale to the
servants in her house. In fine Miss Travers showed a keen feminine
ingenuity and pertinacity in persecution worthy of a nobler motive.
But the defence did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient
provocation for Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to
state that Miss Travers had applied to Sir William Wilde for money
again and again, and accompanied these applications with threats of
worse pen-pricks if the requests were not acceded to. It was under
these circumstances, according to Lady Wilde, that she wrote the
letter complained of to Dr. Travers and enclosed it in a sealed
envelope. She wished to get Dr. Travers to use his parental influence
to stop Miss Travers from further disgracing herself and insulting and
annoying Sir William and Lady Wilde.
The defence carried the war into the enemy's camp by thus suggesting
that Miss Travers was blackmailing Sir William and Lady Wilde.
The attack in the hands of Serjeant Armstrong was still more deadly
and convincing. He rose early on the Monday afternoon and declared at
the beginning that the case was so painful that he would have
preferred not to have been engaged in it--a hypocritical statement
which deceived no one, and was just as conventional-false as his wig.
But with this exception the story he told was extraordinarily clear
and gripping.
Some ten years before, Miss Travers, then a young girl of nineteen,
was suffering from partial deafness, and was recommended by her own
doctor to go to Dr. Wilde, who was the chief oculist and aurist in
Dublin. Miss Travers went to Dr. Wilde, who treated her successfully.
Dr. Wilde would accept no fees from her, stating at the outset that as
she was the daughter of a brother-physician, he thought it an honour
to be of use to her. Serjeant Armstrong assured his hearers that in
spite of Miss Travers' beauty he believed that at first Dr. Wilde took
nothing but a benevolent interest in the girl. Even when his
professional services ceased to be necessary, Dr. Wilde continued his
friendship. He wrote Miss Travers innumerable letters: he advised her
as to her reading and sent her books and tickets for places of
amusement: he even insisted that she should be better dressed, and
pressed money upon her to buy bonnets and clothes and frequently
invited her to his house for dinners and parties. The friendship went
on in this sentimental kindly way for some five or six years till
1860.
The wily Serjeant knew enough about human nature to feel that it was
necessary to discover some dramatic incident to change benevolent
sympathy into passion, and he certainly found what he wanted.
Miss Travers, it appeared, had been burnt low down on her neck when a
child: the cicatrice could still be seen, though it was gradually
disappearing. When her ears were being examined by Dr. Wilde, it was
customary for her to kneel on a hassock before him, and he thus
discovered this burn on her neck. After her hearing improved he still
continued to examine the cicatrice from time to time, pretending to
note the speed with which it was disappearing. Some time in '60 or '61
Miss Travers had a corn on the sole of her foot which gave her some
pain. Dr. Wilde did her the honour of paring the corn with his own
hands and painting it with iodine. The cunning Serjeant could not help
saying with some confusion, natural or assumed, "that it would have
been just as well--at least there are men of such temperament that it
would be dangerous to have such a manipulation going on." The
spectators in the court smiled, feeling that in "manipulation" the
Serjeant had found the most neatly suggestive word.
Naturally at this point Serjeant Sullivan interfered in order to stem
the rising tide of interest and to blunt the point of the accusation.
Sir William Wilde, he said, was not the man to shrink from any
investigation: but he was only in the case formally and he could not
meet the allegations, which therefore were "one-sided and unfair" and
so forth and so on.
After the necessary pause, Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight
and proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this
time, in which he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot,
but to rest it for a few days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal
position while reading a pleasant book. If she would send in, he would
try and send her one.
"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."
Miss Travers then went into the witness-box. Though thin and past her
first youth, she was still pretty in a conventional way, with regular
features and dark eyes. She was examined by Mr. Butt, Q.C. After
confirming point by point what Serjeant Armstrong had said, she went
on to tell the jury that in the summer of '62 she had thought of going
to Australia, where her two brothers lived, who wanted her to come out
to them. Dr. Wilde lent her £40 to go, but told her she must say it
was £20 or her father might think the sum too large. She missed the
ship in London and came back. She was anxious to impress on the jury
the fact that she had repaid Dr. Wilde, that she had always repaid
whatever he had lent her.
She went on to relate how one day Dr. Wilde had got her in a kneeling
position at his feet, when he took her in his arms, declaring that he
would not let her go until she called him William. Miss Travers
refused to do this, and took umbrage at the embracing and ceased to
visit at his house: but Dr. Wilde protested extravagantly that he had
meant nothing wrong, and begged her to forgive him and gradually
brought about a reconciliation which was consummated by pressing
invitations to parties and by a loan of two or three pounds for a
dress, which loan, like the others, had been carefully repaid.
The excitement in the court was becoming breathless. It was felt that
the details were cumulative; the doctor was besieging the fortress in
proper form. The story of embracings, reconciliations and loans all
prepared the public for the great scene.
The girl went on, now answering questions, now telling bits of the
story in her own way, Mr. Butt, the great advocate, taking care that
it should all be consecutive and clear with a due crescendo of
interest. In October, 1862, it appeared Lady Wilde was not in the
house at Merrion Square, but was away at Bray, as one of the children
had not been well, and she thought the sea air would benefit him. Dr.
Wilde was alone in the house. Miss Travers called and was admitted
into Dr. Wilde's study. He put her on her knees before him and bared
her neck, pretending to examine the burn; he fondled her too much and
pressed her to him: she took offence and tried to draw away. Somehow
or other his hand got entangled in a chain at her neck. She called out
to him, "You are suffocating me," and tried to rise: but he cried out
like a madman: "I will, I want to," and pressed what seemed to be a
handkerchief over her face. She declared that she lost consciousness.
When she came to herself she found Dr. Wilde frantically imploring her
to come to her senses, while dabbing water on her face, and offering
her wine to drink.
"If you don't drink," he cried, "I'll pour it over you."
For some time, she said, she scarcely realized where she was or what
had occurred, though she heard him talking. But gradually
consciousness came back to her, and though she would not open her eyes
she understood what he was saying. He talked frantically:
"Do be reasonable, and all will be right.... I am in your power ...
spare me, oh, spare me ... strike me if you like. I wish to God I
could hate you, but I can't. I swore I would never touch your hand
again. Attend to me and do what I tell you. Have faith and confidence
in me and you may remedy the past and go to Australia. Think of the
talk this may give rise to. Keep up appearances for your own sake...."
He then took her up-stairs to a bedroom and made her drink some wine
and lie down for some time. She afterwards left the house; she hardly
knew how; he accompanied her to the door, she thought; but could not
be certain; she was half dazed.
The judge here interposed with the crucial question:
"Did you know that you had been violated?"
The audience waited breathlessly; after a short pause Miss Travers
replied:
"Yes."
Then it was true, the worst was true. The audience, excited to the
highest pitch, caught breath with malevolent delight. But the thrills
were not exhausted. Miss Travers next told how in Dr. Wilde's study
one evening she had been vexed at some slight, and at once took four
pennyworth of laudanum which she had bought. Dr. Wilde hurried her
round to the house of Dr. Walsh, a physician in the neighbourhood, who
gave her an antidote. Dr. Wilde was dreadfully frightened lest
something should get out....
She admitted at once that she had sometimes asked Dr. Wilde for money:
she thought nothing of it as she had again and again repaid him the
monies which he had lent her.
Miss Travers' examination in chief had been intensely interesting. The
fashionable ladies had heard all they had hoped to hear, and it was
noticed that they were not so eager to get seats in the court from
this time on, though the room was still crowded.
The cross-examination of Miss Travers was at least as interesting to
the student of human nature as the examination in chief had been, for
in her story of what took place on that 14th of October, weaknesses
and discrepancies of memory were discovered and at length
improbabilities and contradictions in the narrative itself.
First of all it was elicited that she could not be certain of the day;
it might have been the 15th or the 16th: it was Friday the 14th, she
thought.... It was a great event to her; the most awful event in her
whole life; yet she could not remember the day for certain.
"Did you tell anyone of what had taken place?"
"No."
"Not even your father?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I did not wish to give him pain."
"But you went back to Dr. Wilde's study after the awful assault?"
"Yes."
"You went again and again, did you not?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever attempt to repeat the offence?"
"Yes."
The audience was thunderstruck; the plot was deepening. Miss Travers
went on to say that the Doctor was rude to her again; she did not know
his intention; he took hold of her and tried to fondle her; but she
would not have it.
"After the second offence you went back?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever repeat it again?"
"Yes."
Miss Travers said that once again Dr. Wilde had been rude to her.
"Yet you returned again?"
"Yes."
"And you took money from this man who had violated you against your
will?"
"Yes."
"You asked him for money?"
"Yes."
"This is the first time you have told about this second and third
assault, is it not?"
"Yes," the witness admitted.
So far all that Miss Travers had said hung together and seemed
eminently credible; but when she was questioned about the chloroform
and the handkerchief she became confused. At the outset she admitted
that the handkerchief might have been a rag. She was not certain it
was a rag. It was something she saw the doctor throw into the fire
when she came to her senses.
"Had he kept it in his hands, then, all the time you were
unconscious?"
"I don't know."
"Just to show it to you?"
The witness was silent.
When she was examined as to her knowledge of chloroform, she broke
down hopelessly. She did not know the smell of it; could not describe
it; did not know whether it burnt or not; could not in fact swear that
it was chloroform Dr. Wilde had used; would not swear that it was
anything; believed that it was chloroform or something like it because
she lost consciousness. That was her only reason for saying that
chloroform had been given to her.
Again the judge interposed with the probing question:
"Did you say anything about chloroform in your pamphlet?"
"No," the witness murmured.
It was manifest that the strong current of feeling in favour of Miss
Travers had begun to ebb. The story was a toothsome morsel still: but
it was regretfully admitted that the charge of rape had not been
pushed home. It was felt to be disappointing, too, that the chief
prosecuting witness should have damaged her own case.
It was now the turn of the defence, and some thought the pendulum
might swing back again.
Lady Wilde was called and received an enthusiastic reception. The
ordinary Irishman was willing to show at any time that he believed in
his Muse, and was prepared to do more than cheer for one who had
fought with her pen for "Oireland" in the _Nation_ side by side with
Tom Davis.
Lady Wilde gave her evidence emphatically, but was too bitter to be a
persuasive witness. 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. She did not for a moment believe in her
husband's guilt. Miss Travers wished to make it appear, she said, that
she had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but in her opinion it was
utterly untrue. Sir William Wilde was above suspicion. There was not a
particle of truth in the accusation; _her_ husband would never so
demean himself.
Lady Wilde's disdainful speeches seemed to persuade the populace, but
had small effect on the jury, and still less on the judge.
When she was asked if she hated Miss Travers, she replied that she
did not hate anyone, but she had to admit that she disliked Miss
Travers' methods of action.
"Why did you not answer Miss Travers when she wrote telling you of
your husband's attempt on her virtue?"
"I took no interest in the matter," was the astounding reply.
The defence made an even worse mistake than this. When the time came,
Sir William Wilde was not called.
In his speech for Miss Travers, Mr. Butt made the most of this
omission. He declared that the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into
the witness box was an admission of guilt; an admission that Miss
Travers' story of her betrayal was true and could not be contradicted.
But the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the box was not, he
insisted, the worst point in the defence. He reminded the jury that he
had asked Lady Wilde why she had not answered Miss Travers when she
wrote to her. He recalled Lady Wilde's reply:
"I took no interest in the matter."
Every woman would be interested in such a thing, he declared, even a
stranger; but Lady Wilde hated her husband's victim and took no
interest in her seduction beyond writing a bitter, vindictive and
libellous letter to the girl's father....
The speech was regarded as a masterpiece and enhanced the already
great reputation of the man who was afterwards to become the Home Rule
Leader.
It only remained for the judge to sum up, for everyone was getting
impatient to hear the verdict. Chief Justice Monahan made a short,
impartial speech, throwing the dry, white light of truth upon the
conflicting and passionate statements. First of all, he said, it was
difficult to believe in the story of rape whether with or without
chloroform. If the girl had been violated she would be expected to cry
out at the time, or at least to complain to her father as soon as she
reached home. Had it been a criminal trial, he pointed out, no one
would have believed this part of Miss Travers' story. When you find a
girl does not cry out at the time and does not complain afterwards,
and returns to the house to meet further rudeness, it must be presumed
that she consented to the seduction.
But was there a seduction? The girl asserted that there was guilty
intimacy, and Sir William Wilde had not contradicted her. It was said
that he was only formally a defendant; but he was the real defendant
and he could have gone into the box if he had liked and given his
version of what took place and contradicted Miss Travers in whole or
in part.
"It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to draw your own conclusions
from his omission to do what one would have thought would be an
honourable man's first impulse and duty."
Finally it was for the jury to consider whether the letter was a libel
and if so what the amount of damages should be.
His Lordship recalled the jury at Mr. Butt's request to say that in
assessing damages they might also take into consideration the fact
that the defence was practically a justification of the libel. The
fair-mindedness of the judge was conspicuous from first to last, and
was worthy of the high traditions of the Irish Bench.
After deliberating for a couple of hours the jury brought in a verdict
which had a certain humour in it. They awarded to Miss Travers a
farthing damages and intimated that the farthing should carry costs.
In other words they rated Miss Travers' virtue at the very lowest coin
of the realm, while insisting that Sir William Wilde should pay a
couple of thousands of pounds in costs for having seduced her.
It was generally felt that the verdict did substantial justice; though
the jury, led away by patriotic sympathy with Lady Wilde, the true
"Speranza," had been a little hard on Miss Travers. No one doubted
that Sir William Wilde had seduced his patient. He had, it appeared,
an unholy reputation, and the girl's admission that he had accused her
of being "unnaturally passionless" was accepted as the true key of the
enigma. This was why he had drawn away from the girl, after seducing
her. And it was not unnatural under the circumstances that she should
become vindictive and revengeful.
Such inferences as these, I drew from the comments of the Irish papers
at the time; but naturally I wished if possible to hear some
trustworthy contemporary on the matter. Fortunately such testimony was
forthcoming.
A Fellow of Trinity, who was then a young man, embodied the best
opinion of the time in an excellent pithy letter. He wrote to me that
the trial simply established, what every one believed, that "Sir
William Wilde was a pithecoid person of extraordinary sensuality and
cowardice (funking the witness-box left him without a defender!) and
that his wife was a highfalutin' pretentious creature whose pride was
as extravagant as her reputation founded on second-rate
verse-making.... Even when a young woman she used to keep her rooms in
Merrion Square in semi-darkness; she laid the paint on too thick for
any ordinary light, and she gave herself besides all manner of airs."
This incisive judgment of an able and fairly impartial contemporary
observer[2] corroborates, I think, the inferences which one would
naturally draw from the newspaper accounts of the trial. It seems to
me that both combine to give a realistic photograph, so to speak, of
Sir William and Lady Wilde. An artist, however, would lean to a more
kindly picture. Trying to see the personages as they saw themselves he
would balance the doctor's excessive sensuality and lack of
self-control by dwelling on the fact that his energy and perseverance
and intimate adaptation to his surroundings had brought him in middle
age to the chief place in his profession, and if Lady Wilde was
abnormally vain, a verse-maker and not a poet, she was still a
talented woman of considerable reading and manifold artistic
sympathies.
Such were the father and mother of Oscar Wilde.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] As he has died since this was written, there is no longer any
reason for concealing his name: R.Y. Tyrrell, for many years before
his death Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin.