I do not know to the present moment
whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action.
whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action.
Oscar Wilde
I have walked upon the waters, and from
the dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed the hungry
in the desert where there was no food, and I have raised the dead from
their narrow houses, and at my bidding, and before a great multitude, of
people, a barren fig-tree withered away. All things that this man has
done I have done also. And yet they have not crucified me. '--_Poems in
Prose_.
THE HOUSE OF JUDGMENT
And there was silence in the House of Judgment, and the Man came naked
before God.
And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast shown
cruelty to those who were in need of succour, and to those who lacked
help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee
and thou didst not hearken, and thine ears were closed to the cry of My
afflicted. The inheritance of the fatherless thou didst take unto
thyself, and thou didst send the foxes into the vineyard of thy
neighbour's field. Thou didst take the bread of the children and give it
to the dogs to eat, and My lepers who lived in the marshes, and were at
peace and praised Me, thou didst drive forth on to the highways, and on
Mine earth out of which I made thee thou didst spill innocent blood. '
And the Man made answer and said, 'Even so did I. '
And again God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Thy life hath been evil, and the Beauty I have
shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou didst pass
by. The walls of thy chamber were painted with images, and from the bed
of thine abominations thou didst rise up to the sound of flutes. Thou
didst build seven altars to the sins I have suffered, and didst eat of
the thing that may not be eaten, and the purple of thy raiment was
broidered with the three signs of shame. Thine idols were neither of
gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that dieth. Thou didst
stain their hair with perfumes and put pomegranates in their hands. Thou
didst stain their feet with saffron and spread carpets before them. With
antimony thou didst stain their eyelids and their bodies thou didst smear
with myrrh. Thou didst bow thyself to the ground before them, and the
thrones of thine idols were set in the sun. Thou didst show to the sun
thy shame and to the moon thy madness. '
And the Man made answer and said, 'Even so did I. '
And a third time God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Evil hath been thy life, and with evil didst
thou requite good, and with wrongdoing kindness. The hands that fed thee
thou didst wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou didst despise.
He who came to thee with water went away thirsting, and the outlawed men
who hid thee in their tents at night thou didst betray before dawn. Thine
enemy who spared thee thou didst snare in an ambush, and the friend who
walked with thee thou didst sell for a price, and to those who brought
thee Love thou didst ever give Lust in thy turn. '
And the Man made answer and said, 'Even so did I. '
And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man, and said, 'Surely I will
send thee into Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee. '
And the Man cried out, 'Thou canst not. '
And God said to the Man, 'Wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and for
what reason? '
'Because in Hell have I always lived,' answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment.
And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, 'Seeing that I may not
send thee into Hell, surely I will send thee unto Heaven. Even unto
Heaven will I send thee. '
And the Man cried out, 'Thou canst not. '
And God said to the Man, 'Wherefore can I not send thee unto Heaven, and
for what reason? '
'Because never, and in no place, have I been able to imagine it,'
answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment. --_Poems in Prose_.
THE TEACHER OF WISDOM
From his childhood he had been as one filled with the perfect knowledge
of God, and even while he was yet but a lad many of the saints, as well
as certain holy women who dwelt in the free city of his birth, had been
stirred to much wonder by the grave wisdom of his answers.
And when his parents had given him the robe and the ring of manhood he
kissed them, and left them and went out into the world, that he might
speak to the world about God. For there were at that time many in the
world who either knew not God at all, or had but an incomplete knowledge
of Him, or worshipped the false gods who dwell in groves and have no care
of their worshippers.
And he set his face to the sun and journeyed, walking without sandals, as
he had seen the saints walk, and carrying at his girdle a leathern wallet
and a little water-bottle of burnt clay.
And as he walked along the highway he was full of the joy that comes from
the perfect knowledge of God, and he sang praises unto God without
ceasing; and after a time he reached a strange land in which there were
many cities.
And he passed through eleven cities. And some of these cities were in
valleys, and others were by the banks of great rivers, and others were
set on hills. And in each city he found a disciple who loved him and
followed him, and a great multitude also of people followed him from each
city, and the knowledge of God spread in the whole land, and many of the
rulers were converted, and the priests of the temples in which there were
idols found that half of their gain was gone, and when they beat upon
their drums at noon none, or but a few, came with peacocks and with
offerings of flesh as had been the custom of the land before his coming.
Yet the more the people followed him, and the greater the number of his
disciples, the greater became his sorrow. And he knew not why his sorrow
was so great. For he spake ever about God, and out of the fulness of
that perfect knowledge of God which God had Himself given to him.
And one evening he passed out of the eleventh city, which was a city of
Armenia, and his disciples and a great crowd of people followed after
him; and he went up on to a mountain and sat down on a rock that was on
the mountain, and his disciples stood round him, and the multitude knelt
in the valley.
And he bowed his head on his hands and wept, and said to his Soul, 'Why
is it that I am full of sorrow and fear, and that each of my disciples is
an enemy that walks in the noonday? ' And his Soul answered him and said,
'God filled thee with the perfect knowledge of Himself, and thou hast
given this knowledge away to others. The pearl of great price thou hast
divided, and the vesture without seam thou hast parted asunder. He who
giveth away wisdom robbeth himself. He is as one who giveth his treasure
to a robber. Is not God wiser than thou art? Who art thou to give away
the secret that God hath told thee? I was rich once, and thou hast made
me poor. Once I saw God, and now thou hast hidden Him from me. '
And he wept again, for he knew that his Soul spake truth to him, and that
he had given to others the perfect knowledge of God, and that he was as
one clinging to the skirts of God, and that his faith was leaving him by
reason of the number of those who believed in him.
And he said to himself, 'I will talk no more about God. He who giveth
away wisdom robbeth himself. '
And after the space of some hours his disciples came near him and bowed
themselves to the ground and said, 'Master, talk to us about God, for
thou hast the perfect knowledge of God, and no man save thee hath this
knowledge. '
And he answered them and said, 'I will talk to you about all other things
that are in heaven and on earth, but about God I will not talk to you.
Neither now, nor at any time, will I talk to you about God. '
And they were wroth with him and said to him, 'Thou hast led us into the
desert that we might hearken to thee. Wilt thou send us away hungry, and
the great multitude that thou hast made to follow thee? '
And he answered them and said, 'I will not talk to you about God. '
And the multitude murmured against him and said to him, 'Thou hast led us
into the desert, and hast given us no food to eat. Talk to us about God
and it will suffice us. '
But he answered them not a word. For he knew that if he spake to them
about God he would give away his treasure.
And his disciples went away sadly, and the multitude of people returned
to their own homes. And many died on the way.
And when he was alone he rose up and set his face to the moon, and
journeyed for seven moons, speaking to no man nor making any answer. And
when the seventh moon had waned he reached that desert which is the
desert of the Great River. And having found a cavern in which a Centaur
had once dwelt, he took it for his place of dwelling, and made himself a
mat of reeds on which to lie, and became a hermit. And every hour the
Hermit praised God that He had suffered him to keep some knowledge of Him
and of His wonderful greatness.
Now, one evening, as the Hermit was seated before the cavern in which he
had made his place of dwelling, he beheld a young man of evil and
beautiful face who passed by in mean apparel and with empty hands. Every
evening with empty hands the young man passed by, and every morning he
returned with his hands full of purple and pearls. For he was a Robber
and robbed the caravans of the merchants.
And the Hermit looked at him and pitied him. But he spake not a word.
For he knew that he who speaks a word loses his faith.
And one morning, as the young man returned with his hands full of purple
and pearls, he stopped and frowned and stamped his foot upon the sand,
and said to the Hermit: 'Why do you look at me ever in this manner as I
pass by? What is it that I see in your eyes? For no man has looked at
me before in this manner. And the thing is a thorn and a trouble to me. '
And the Hermit answered him and said, 'What you see in my eyes is pity.
Pity is what looks out at you from my eyes. '
And the young man laughed with scorn, and cried to the Hermit in a bitter
voice, and said to him, 'I have purple and pearls in my hands, and you
have but a mat of reeds on which to lie. What pity should you have for
me? And for what reason have you this pity? '
'I have pity for you,' said the Hermit, 'because you have no knowledge of
God. '
'Is this knowledge of God a precious thing? ' asked the young man, and he
came close to the mouth of the cavern.
'It is more precious than all the purple and the pearls of the world,'
answered the Hermit.
'And have you got it? ' said the young Robber, and he came closer still.
'Once, indeed,' answered the Hermit, 'I possessed the perfect knowledge
of God. But in my foolishness I parted with it, and divided it amongst
others. Yet even now is such knowledge as remains to me more precious
than purple or pearls. '
And when the young Robber heard this he threw away the purple and the
pearls that he was bearing in his hands, and drawing a sharp sword of
curved steel he said to the Hermit, 'Give me, forthwith this knowledge of
God that you possess, or I will surely slay you. Wherefore should I not
slay him who has a treasure greater than my treasure? '
And the Hermit spread out his arms and said, 'Were it not better for me
to go unto the uttermost courts of God and praise Him, than to live in
the world and have no knowledge of Him? Slay me if that be your desire.
But I will not give away my knowledge of God. '
And the young Robber knelt down and besought him, but the Hermit would
not talk to him about God, nor give him his Treasure, and the young
Robber rose up and said to the Hermit, 'Be it as you will. As for
myself, I will go to the City of the Seven Sins, that is but three days'
journey from this place, and for my purple they will give me pleasure,
and for my pearls they will sell me joy. ' And he took up the purple and
the pearls and went swiftly away.
And the Hermit cried out and followed him and besought him. For the
space of three days he followed the young Robber on the road and
entreated him to return, nor to enter into the City of the Seven Sins.
And ever and anon the young Robber looked back at the Hermit and called
to him, and said, 'Will you give me this knowledge of God which is more
precious than purple and pearls? If you will give me that, I will not
enter the city. '
And ever did the Hermit answer, 'All things that I have I will give thee,
save that one thing only. For that thing it is not lawful for me to give
away. '
And in the twilight of the third day they came nigh to the great scarlet
gates of the City of the Seven Sins. And from the city there came the
sound of much laughter.
And the young Robber laughed in answer, and sought to knock at the gate.
And as he did so the Hermit ran forward and caught him by the skirts of
his raiment, and said to him: 'Stretch forth your hands, and set your
arms around my neck, and put your ear close to my lips, and I will give
you what remains to me of the knowledge of God. ' And the young Robber
stopped.
And when the Hermit had given away his knowledge of God, he fell upon the
ground and wept, and a great darkness hid from him the city and the young
Robber, so that he saw them no more.
And as he lay there weeping he was ware of One who was standing beside
him; and He who was standing beside him had feet of brass and hair like
fine wool. And He raised the Hermit up, and said to him: 'Before this
time thou hadst the perfect knowledge of God. Now thou shalt have the
perfect love of God. Wherefore art thou weeping? ' And he kissed
him. --_Poems in Prose_.
WILDE GIVES DIRECTIONS ABOUT 'DE PROFUNDIS'
H. M. PRISON, READING.
April 1st, 1897.
My Dear Robbie,--I send you a MS. separate from this, which I hope will
arrive safely. As soon as you have read it, I want you to have it
carefully copied for me. There are many causes why I wish this to be
done. One will suffice. I want you to be my literary executor in case
of my death, and to have complete control of my plays, books, and papers.
As soon as I find I have a legal right to make a will, I will do so. My
wife does not understand my art, nor could be expected to have any
interest in it, and Cyril is only a child. So I turn naturally to you,
as indeed I do for everything, and would like you to have all my works.
The deficit that their sale will produce may be lodged to the credit of
Cyril and Vivian. Well, if you are my literary executor, you must be in
possession of the only document that gives any explanation of my
extraordinary behaviour . . . When you have read the letter, you will see
the psychological explanation of a course of conduct that from the
outside seems a combination of absolute idiotcy with vulgar bravado. Some
day the truth will have to be known--not necessarily in my lifetime . . .
but I am not prepared to sit in the grotesque pillory they put me into,
for all time; for the simple reason that I inherited from my father and
mother a name of high distinction in literature and art, and I cannot for
eternity allow that name to be degraded. I don't defend my conduct. I
explain it. Also there are in my letter certain passages which deal with
my mental development in prison, and the inevitable evolution of my
character and intellectual attitude towards life that has taken place:
and I want you and others who still stand by me and have affection for me
to know exactly in what mood and manner I hope to face the world. Of
course from one point of view I know that on the day of my release I
shall be merely passing from one prison into another, and there are times
when the whole world seems to me no larger than my cell and as full of
terror for me. Still I believe that at the beginning God made a world
for each separate man, and in that world which is within us we should
seek to live. At any rate you will read those parts of my letter with
less pain than the others. Of course I need not remind you how fluid a
thing thought is with me--with us all--and of what an evanescent
substance are our emotions made. Still I do see a sort of possible goal
towards which, through art, I may progress. It is not unlikely that you
may help me.
As regards the mode of copying: of course it is too long for any
amanuensis to attempt: and your own handwriting, dear Robbie, in your
last letter seems specially designed to remind me that the task is not to
be yours. I think that the only thing to do is to be thoroughly modern
and to have it typewritten. Of course the MS. should not pass out of
your control, but could you not get Mrs. Marshall to send down one of her
type-writing girls--women are the most reliable as they have no memory
for the important--to Hornton Street or Phillimore Gardens, to do it
under your supervision? I assure you that the typewriting machine, when
played with expression, is not more annoying than the piano when played
by a sister or near relation. Indeed many among those most devoted to
domesticity prefer it. I wish the copy to be done not on tissue paper
but on good paper such as is used for plays, and a wide rubricated margin
should be left for corrections . . . If the copy is done at Hornton
Street the lady typewriter might be fed through a lattice in the door,
like the Cardinals when they elect a Pope; till she comes out on the
balcony and can say to the world: "Habet Mundus Epistolam"; for indeed it
is an Encyclical letter, and as the Bulls of the Holy Father are named
from their opening words, it may be spoken of as the "_Epistola_: _in
Carcere et Vinculis_. " . . . In point of fact, Robbie, prison life makes
one see people and things as they really are. That is why it turns one
to stone. It is the people outside who are deceived by the illusions of
a life in constant motion. They revolve with life and contribute to its
unreality. We who are immobile both see and know. Whether or not the
letter does good to narrow natures and hectic brains, to me it has done
good. I have "cleansed my bosom of much perilous stuff"; to borrow a
phrase from the poet whom you and I once thought of rescuing from the
Philistines. I need not remind you that mere expression is to an artist
the supreme and only mode of life. It is by utterance that we live. Of
the many, many things for which I have to thank the Governor there is
none for which I am more grateful than for his permission to write fully
and at as great a length as I desire. For nearly two years I had within
a growing burden of bitterness, of much of which I have now got rid. On
the other side of the prison wall there are some poor black
soot-besmirched trees that are just breaking out into buds of an almost
shrill green. I know quite well what they are going through. They are
finding expression.
Ever yours,
OSCAR.
--_Letter from Reading Prison to Robert Ross_.
CAREY STREET
Where there is sorrow there in holy ground. Some day people will realise
what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do,--and
natures like his can realise it. When I was brought down from my prison
to the Court of Bankruptcy, between two policemen,--waited in the long
dreary corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and
simple hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as,
handcuffed and with bowed head, I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven
for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode
of love, that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or
stooped to kiss the leper on the cheek. I have never said one single
word to him about what he did.
I do not know to the present moment
whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action. It is not a
thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal words. I store it
in the treasure-house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that
I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed and kept
sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears. When wisdom has been
profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of
those who have sought to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my
mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act of love has unsealed
for me all the wells of pity: made the desert blossom like a rose, and
brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the
wounded, broken, and great heart of the world. When people are able to
understand, not merely how beautiful ---'s action was, but why it meant
so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they will
realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. . . .
The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we
are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man's life, a misfortune, a
casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of
one who is in prison as of one who is 'in trouble' simply. It is the
phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love
in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison
makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air
and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome
when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our
very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are
broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still live. We are
denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring
balm to the bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain. --_De
Profundis_.
SORROW WEARS NO MASK
Sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the
type and test of all great art. What the artist is always looking for is
the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible: in
which the outward is expressive of the inward: in which form reveals. Of
such modes of existence there are not a few: youth and the arts
preoccupied with youth may serve as a model for us at one moment: at
another we may like to think that, in its subtlety and sensitiveness of
impression, its suggestion of a spirit dwelling in external things and
making its raiment of earth and air, of mist and city alike, and in its
morbid sympathy of its moods, and tones, and colours, modern landscape
art is realising for us pictorially what was realised in such plastic
perfection by the Greeks. Music, in which all subject is absorbed in
expression and cannot be separated from it, is a complex example, and a
flower or a child a simple example, of what I mean; but sorrow is the
ultimate type both in life and art.
Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and
callous. But behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike
pleasure, wears no mask. Truth in art is not any correspondence between
the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the
resemblance of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to
the form itself; it is no echo coming from a hollow hill, any more than
it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows the moon to the
moon and Narcissus to Narcissus. Truth in art is the unity of a thing
with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made
incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no
truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to
be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the
appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow
have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there
is pain.
More than this, there is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary
reality. I have said of myself that I was one who stood in symbolic
relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not a single
wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in
symbolic relation to the very secret of life. For the secret of life is
suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything. When we begin to
live, what is sweet is so sweet to us, and what is bitter so bitter, that
we inevitably direct all our desires towards pleasures, and seek not
merely for a 'month or twain to feed on honeycomb,' but for all our years
to taste no other food, ignorant all the while that we may really be
starving the soul. --_De Profundis_.
VITA NUOVA
Far off, like a perfect pearl, one can see the city of God. It is so
wonderful that it seems as if a child could reach it in a summer's day.
And so a child could. But with me and such as me it is different. One
can realise a thing in a single moment, but one loses it in the long
hours that follow with leaden feet. It is so difficult to keep 'heights
that the soul is competent to gain. ' We think in eternity, but we move
slowly through time; and how slowly time goes with us who lie in prison I
need not tell again, nor of the weariness and despair that creep back
into one's cell, and into the cell of one's heart, with such strange
insistence that one has, as it were, to garnish and sweep one's house for
their coming, as for an unwelcome guest, or a bitter master, or a slave
whose slave it is one's chance or choice to be.
And, though at present my friends may find it a hard thing to believe, it
is true none the less, that for them living in freedom and idleness and
comfort it is more easy to learn the lessons of humility than it is for
me, who begin the day by going down on my knees and washing the floor of
my cell. For prison life with its endless privations and restrictions
makes one rebellious. The most terrible thing about it is not that it
breaks one's heart--hearts are made to be broken--but that it turns one's
heart to stone. One sometimes feels that it is only with a front of
brass and a lip of scorn that one can get through the day at all. And he
who is in a state of rebellion cannot receive grace, to use the phrase of
which the Church is so fond--so rightly fond, I dare say--for in life as
in art the mood of rebellion closes up the channels of the soul, and
shuts out the airs of heaven. Yet I must learn these lessons here, if I
am to learn them anywhere, and must be filled with joy if my feet are on
the right road and my face set towards 'the gate which is called
beautiful,' though I may fall many times in the mire and often in the
mist go astray.
This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it,
is of course no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by means of
development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember when I was at
Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round Magdalen's
narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my
degree, that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden
of the world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion
in my soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake
was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to
me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its
shadow and its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair,
suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from lips in pain,
remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-
abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head, the
anguish that chooses sack-cloth for its raiment and into its own drink
puts gall:--all these were things of which I was afraid. And as I had
determined to know nothing of them, I was forced to taste each of them in
turn, to feed on them, to have for a season, indeed, no other food at
all.
I don't regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it
to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no
pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup
of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived
on honeycomb. But to have continued the same life would have been wrong
because it would have been limiting. I had to pass on. The other half
of the garden had its secrets for me also. --_De Profundis_.
THE GRAND ROMANTIC
It is when he deals with a sinner that Christ is most romantic, in the
sense of most real. The world had always loved the saint as being the
nearest possible approach to the perfection of God. Christ, through some
divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being
the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary
desire was not to reform people, any more than his primary desire was to
a relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief into a tedious honest
man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoners' Aid
Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a
publican into a Pharisee would not have seemed to him a great
achievement. But in a manner not yet understood of the world he regarded
sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful holy things and modes
of perfection.
It seems a very dangerous idea. It is--all great ideas are dangerous.
That it was Christ's creed admits of no doubt. That it is the true creed
I don't doubt myself.
Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he
would be unable to realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is
the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one
alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say
in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past. ' Christ
showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing
he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said--I feel quite
certain about it--that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and
wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-
herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments
in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare
say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worth
while going to prison.
There is something so unique about Christ. Of course just as there are
false dawns before the dawn itself, and winter days so full of sudden
sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into squandering its gold
before its time, and make some foolish bird call to its mate to build on
barren boughs, so there were Christians before Christ. For that we
should be grateful. The unfortunate thing is that there have been none
since. I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi. But then God had
given him at his birth the soul of a poet, as he himself when quite young
had in mystical marriage taken poverty as his bride: and with the soul of
a poet and the body of a beggar he found the way to perfection not
difficult. He understood Christ, and so he became like him. We do not
require the Liber Conformitatum to teach us that the life of St. Francis
was the true _Imitatio Christi_, a poem compared to which the book of
that name is merely prose.
Indeed, that is the charm about Christ, when all is said: he is just like
a work of art. He does not really teach one anything, but by being
brought into his presence one becomes something. And everybody is
predestined to his presence. Once at least in his life each man walks
with Christ to Emmaus. --_De Profundis_.
CLAPHAM JUNCTION
My lot has been one of public infamy, of long imprisonment, of misery, of
ruin, of disgrace, but I am not worthy of it--not yet, at any rate. I
remember that I used to say that I thought I could bear a real tragedy if
it came to me with purple pall and a mask of noble sorrow, but that the
dreadful thing about modernity was that it put tragedy into the raiment
of comedy, so that the great realities seemed commonplace or grotesque or
lacking in style. It is quite true about modernity. It has probably
always been true about actual life. It is said that all martyrdoms
seemed mean to the looker on. The nineteenth century is no exception to
the rule.
Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in
style; our very dress makes us grotesque. We are the zanies of sorrow.
We are clowns whose hearts are broken. We are specially designed to
appeal to the sense of humour. On November 13th, 1895, I was brought
down here from London. From two o'clock till half-past two on that day I
had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress,
and handcuffed, for the world to look at. I had been taken out of the
hospital ward without a moment's notice being given to me. Of all
possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people saw me they
laughed. Each train as it came up swelled the audience. Nothing could
exceed their amusement. That was, of course, before they knew who I was.
As soon as they had been informed they laughed still more. For half an
hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering
mob. --_De Profundis_.
THE BROKEN RESOLUTION
We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single
thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and
that the Earth is mother to us all. As a consequence our art is of the
moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and deals
directly with things. I feel sure that in elemental forces there is
purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence.
Of course to one so modern as I am, 'Enfant de mon siecle,' merely to
look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I
think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the
lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir
into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss
the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for
me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the
first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the
tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to
whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of
some rose. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not
a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a
shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my
nature does not answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those
'pour qui le monde visible existe. '
Still, I am conscious now that behind all this beauty, satisfying though
it may be, there is some spirit hidden of which the painted forms and
shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with this spirit that I
desire to become in harmony. I have grown tired of the articulate
utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life,
the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely
necessary for me to find it somewhere.
All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences
of death; and three times have I been tried. The first time I left the
box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of
detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society,
as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer;
but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have
clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence
I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may
walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my
footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in
great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole. --_De Profundis_.
DOMESTICITY AT BERNEVAL
DIEPPE,
June 1st, 1897.
My Dear Robbie,--I propose to live at Berneval. I will _not_ live in
Paris, nor in Algiers, nor in Southern Italy. Surely a house for a year,
if I choose to continue there, at 32 pounds is absurdly cheap. I could
not live cheaper at a hotel. You are penny foolish, and pound foolish--a
dreadful state for my financier to be in. I told M. Bonnet that my
bankers were MM. Ross et Cie, banquiers celebres de Londres--and now you
suddenly show me that you have no place among the great financial people,
and are afraid of any investment over 31 pounds, 10s. It is merely the
extra ten shillings that baffles you. As regards people living on me,
and the extra bedrooms: dear boy, there is no one who would stay with me
but you, and you will pay your own bill at the hotel for meals; and as
for your room, the charge will be nominally 2 francs 50 centimes a night,
but there will be lots of extras such as _bougie, bain_ and hot water,
and all cigarettes smoked in the bedrooms are charged extra. And if any
one does not take the extras, of course he is charged more:--
Bain, 25 C.
Pas de bain, 50 C.
Cigarette dans la chambre a coucher, 10 C. pour chaque cigarette.
Pas de cigarette dans la chambre a coucher, 20 C. pour chaque
cigarette.
This is the system at all good hotels. If Reggie comes, of course he
will pay a little more: I cannot forget that he gave me a dressing-case.
Sphinxes pay a hundred per cent more than any one else--they always did
in Ancient Egypt.
But seriously, Robbie, if people stayed with me, of course they would pay
their _pension_ at the hotel. They would have to: except architects. A
modern architect, like modern architecture, doesn't pay. But then I know
only one architect and you are hiding him somewhere from me. I believe
that he is as extinct as the dado, of which now only fossil remains are
found, chiefly in the vicinity of Brompton, where they are sometimes
discovered by workmen excavating. They are usually embedded in the old
Lincrusta Walton strata, and are rare consequently.
I visited M. le Cure {4} to-day. He has a charming house and a _jardin
potager_. He showed me over the church. To-morrow I sit in the choir by
his special invitation. He showed me all his vestments. To-morrow he
really will be charming in red. He knows I am a heretic, and believes
Pusey is still alive. He says that God will convert England on account
of England's kindness to _les pretres exiles_ at the time of the
Revolution. It is to be the reward of that sea-lashed island.
Stained glass windows are wanted in the church; he has only six; fourteen
more are needed. He gets them at 300 francs--12 pounds--a window in
Paris. I was nearly offering half a dozen, but remembered you, and so
only gave him something _pour les pauvres_. You had a narrow escape,
Robbie. You should be thankful.
I hope the 40 pounds is on its way, and that the 60 pounds will follow. I
am going to hire a boat. It will save walking and so be an economy in
the end. Dear Robbie, I must start well. If the life of St. Francis of
Assissi awaits me I shall not be angry. Worse things might happen.
Yours,
OSCAR.
the dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed the hungry
in the desert where there was no food, and I have raised the dead from
their narrow houses, and at my bidding, and before a great multitude, of
people, a barren fig-tree withered away. All things that this man has
done I have done also. And yet they have not crucified me. '--_Poems in
Prose_.
THE HOUSE OF JUDGMENT
And there was silence in the House of Judgment, and the Man came naked
before God.
And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast shown
cruelty to those who were in need of succour, and to those who lacked
help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee
and thou didst not hearken, and thine ears were closed to the cry of My
afflicted. The inheritance of the fatherless thou didst take unto
thyself, and thou didst send the foxes into the vineyard of thy
neighbour's field. Thou didst take the bread of the children and give it
to the dogs to eat, and My lepers who lived in the marshes, and were at
peace and praised Me, thou didst drive forth on to the highways, and on
Mine earth out of which I made thee thou didst spill innocent blood. '
And the Man made answer and said, 'Even so did I. '
And again God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Thy life hath been evil, and the Beauty I have
shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou didst pass
by. The walls of thy chamber were painted with images, and from the bed
of thine abominations thou didst rise up to the sound of flutes. Thou
didst build seven altars to the sins I have suffered, and didst eat of
the thing that may not be eaten, and the purple of thy raiment was
broidered with the three signs of shame. Thine idols were neither of
gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that dieth. Thou didst
stain their hair with perfumes and put pomegranates in their hands. Thou
didst stain their feet with saffron and spread carpets before them. With
antimony thou didst stain their eyelids and their bodies thou didst smear
with myrrh. Thou didst bow thyself to the ground before them, and the
thrones of thine idols were set in the sun. Thou didst show to the sun
thy shame and to the moon thy madness. '
And the Man made answer and said, 'Even so did I. '
And a third time God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Evil hath been thy life, and with evil didst
thou requite good, and with wrongdoing kindness. The hands that fed thee
thou didst wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou didst despise.
He who came to thee with water went away thirsting, and the outlawed men
who hid thee in their tents at night thou didst betray before dawn. Thine
enemy who spared thee thou didst snare in an ambush, and the friend who
walked with thee thou didst sell for a price, and to those who brought
thee Love thou didst ever give Lust in thy turn. '
And the Man made answer and said, 'Even so did I. '
And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man, and said, 'Surely I will
send thee into Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee. '
And the Man cried out, 'Thou canst not. '
And God said to the Man, 'Wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and for
what reason? '
'Because in Hell have I always lived,' answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment.
And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, 'Seeing that I may not
send thee into Hell, surely I will send thee unto Heaven. Even unto
Heaven will I send thee. '
And the Man cried out, 'Thou canst not. '
And God said to the Man, 'Wherefore can I not send thee unto Heaven, and
for what reason? '
'Because never, and in no place, have I been able to imagine it,'
answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment. --_Poems in Prose_.
THE TEACHER OF WISDOM
From his childhood he had been as one filled with the perfect knowledge
of God, and even while he was yet but a lad many of the saints, as well
as certain holy women who dwelt in the free city of his birth, had been
stirred to much wonder by the grave wisdom of his answers.
And when his parents had given him the robe and the ring of manhood he
kissed them, and left them and went out into the world, that he might
speak to the world about God. For there were at that time many in the
world who either knew not God at all, or had but an incomplete knowledge
of Him, or worshipped the false gods who dwell in groves and have no care
of their worshippers.
And he set his face to the sun and journeyed, walking without sandals, as
he had seen the saints walk, and carrying at his girdle a leathern wallet
and a little water-bottle of burnt clay.
And as he walked along the highway he was full of the joy that comes from
the perfect knowledge of God, and he sang praises unto God without
ceasing; and after a time he reached a strange land in which there were
many cities.
And he passed through eleven cities. And some of these cities were in
valleys, and others were by the banks of great rivers, and others were
set on hills. And in each city he found a disciple who loved him and
followed him, and a great multitude also of people followed him from each
city, and the knowledge of God spread in the whole land, and many of the
rulers were converted, and the priests of the temples in which there were
idols found that half of their gain was gone, and when they beat upon
their drums at noon none, or but a few, came with peacocks and with
offerings of flesh as had been the custom of the land before his coming.
Yet the more the people followed him, and the greater the number of his
disciples, the greater became his sorrow. And he knew not why his sorrow
was so great. For he spake ever about God, and out of the fulness of
that perfect knowledge of God which God had Himself given to him.
And one evening he passed out of the eleventh city, which was a city of
Armenia, and his disciples and a great crowd of people followed after
him; and he went up on to a mountain and sat down on a rock that was on
the mountain, and his disciples stood round him, and the multitude knelt
in the valley.
And he bowed his head on his hands and wept, and said to his Soul, 'Why
is it that I am full of sorrow and fear, and that each of my disciples is
an enemy that walks in the noonday? ' And his Soul answered him and said,
'God filled thee with the perfect knowledge of Himself, and thou hast
given this knowledge away to others. The pearl of great price thou hast
divided, and the vesture without seam thou hast parted asunder. He who
giveth away wisdom robbeth himself. He is as one who giveth his treasure
to a robber. Is not God wiser than thou art? Who art thou to give away
the secret that God hath told thee? I was rich once, and thou hast made
me poor. Once I saw God, and now thou hast hidden Him from me. '
And he wept again, for he knew that his Soul spake truth to him, and that
he had given to others the perfect knowledge of God, and that he was as
one clinging to the skirts of God, and that his faith was leaving him by
reason of the number of those who believed in him.
And he said to himself, 'I will talk no more about God. He who giveth
away wisdom robbeth himself. '
And after the space of some hours his disciples came near him and bowed
themselves to the ground and said, 'Master, talk to us about God, for
thou hast the perfect knowledge of God, and no man save thee hath this
knowledge. '
And he answered them and said, 'I will talk to you about all other things
that are in heaven and on earth, but about God I will not talk to you.
Neither now, nor at any time, will I talk to you about God. '
And they were wroth with him and said to him, 'Thou hast led us into the
desert that we might hearken to thee. Wilt thou send us away hungry, and
the great multitude that thou hast made to follow thee? '
And he answered them and said, 'I will not talk to you about God. '
And the multitude murmured against him and said to him, 'Thou hast led us
into the desert, and hast given us no food to eat. Talk to us about God
and it will suffice us. '
But he answered them not a word. For he knew that if he spake to them
about God he would give away his treasure.
And his disciples went away sadly, and the multitude of people returned
to their own homes. And many died on the way.
And when he was alone he rose up and set his face to the moon, and
journeyed for seven moons, speaking to no man nor making any answer. And
when the seventh moon had waned he reached that desert which is the
desert of the Great River. And having found a cavern in which a Centaur
had once dwelt, he took it for his place of dwelling, and made himself a
mat of reeds on which to lie, and became a hermit. And every hour the
Hermit praised God that He had suffered him to keep some knowledge of Him
and of His wonderful greatness.
Now, one evening, as the Hermit was seated before the cavern in which he
had made his place of dwelling, he beheld a young man of evil and
beautiful face who passed by in mean apparel and with empty hands. Every
evening with empty hands the young man passed by, and every morning he
returned with his hands full of purple and pearls. For he was a Robber
and robbed the caravans of the merchants.
And the Hermit looked at him and pitied him. But he spake not a word.
For he knew that he who speaks a word loses his faith.
And one morning, as the young man returned with his hands full of purple
and pearls, he stopped and frowned and stamped his foot upon the sand,
and said to the Hermit: 'Why do you look at me ever in this manner as I
pass by? What is it that I see in your eyes? For no man has looked at
me before in this manner. And the thing is a thorn and a trouble to me. '
And the Hermit answered him and said, 'What you see in my eyes is pity.
Pity is what looks out at you from my eyes. '
And the young man laughed with scorn, and cried to the Hermit in a bitter
voice, and said to him, 'I have purple and pearls in my hands, and you
have but a mat of reeds on which to lie. What pity should you have for
me? And for what reason have you this pity? '
'I have pity for you,' said the Hermit, 'because you have no knowledge of
God. '
'Is this knowledge of God a precious thing? ' asked the young man, and he
came close to the mouth of the cavern.
'It is more precious than all the purple and the pearls of the world,'
answered the Hermit.
'And have you got it? ' said the young Robber, and he came closer still.
'Once, indeed,' answered the Hermit, 'I possessed the perfect knowledge
of God. But in my foolishness I parted with it, and divided it amongst
others. Yet even now is such knowledge as remains to me more precious
than purple or pearls. '
And when the young Robber heard this he threw away the purple and the
pearls that he was bearing in his hands, and drawing a sharp sword of
curved steel he said to the Hermit, 'Give me, forthwith this knowledge of
God that you possess, or I will surely slay you. Wherefore should I not
slay him who has a treasure greater than my treasure? '
And the Hermit spread out his arms and said, 'Were it not better for me
to go unto the uttermost courts of God and praise Him, than to live in
the world and have no knowledge of Him? Slay me if that be your desire.
But I will not give away my knowledge of God. '
And the young Robber knelt down and besought him, but the Hermit would
not talk to him about God, nor give him his Treasure, and the young
Robber rose up and said to the Hermit, 'Be it as you will. As for
myself, I will go to the City of the Seven Sins, that is but three days'
journey from this place, and for my purple they will give me pleasure,
and for my pearls they will sell me joy. ' And he took up the purple and
the pearls and went swiftly away.
And the Hermit cried out and followed him and besought him. For the
space of three days he followed the young Robber on the road and
entreated him to return, nor to enter into the City of the Seven Sins.
And ever and anon the young Robber looked back at the Hermit and called
to him, and said, 'Will you give me this knowledge of God which is more
precious than purple and pearls? If you will give me that, I will not
enter the city. '
And ever did the Hermit answer, 'All things that I have I will give thee,
save that one thing only. For that thing it is not lawful for me to give
away. '
And in the twilight of the third day they came nigh to the great scarlet
gates of the City of the Seven Sins. And from the city there came the
sound of much laughter.
And the young Robber laughed in answer, and sought to knock at the gate.
And as he did so the Hermit ran forward and caught him by the skirts of
his raiment, and said to him: 'Stretch forth your hands, and set your
arms around my neck, and put your ear close to my lips, and I will give
you what remains to me of the knowledge of God. ' And the young Robber
stopped.
And when the Hermit had given away his knowledge of God, he fell upon the
ground and wept, and a great darkness hid from him the city and the young
Robber, so that he saw them no more.
And as he lay there weeping he was ware of One who was standing beside
him; and He who was standing beside him had feet of brass and hair like
fine wool. And He raised the Hermit up, and said to him: 'Before this
time thou hadst the perfect knowledge of God. Now thou shalt have the
perfect love of God. Wherefore art thou weeping? ' And he kissed
him. --_Poems in Prose_.
WILDE GIVES DIRECTIONS ABOUT 'DE PROFUNDIS'
H. M. PRISON, READING.
April 1st, 1897.
My Dear Robbie,--I send you a MS. separate from this, which I hope will
arrive safely. As soon as you have read it, I want you to have it
carefully copied for me. There are many causes why I wish this to be
done. One will suffice. I want you to be my literary executor in case
of my death, and to have complete control of my plays, books, and papers.
As soon as I find I have a legal right to make a will, I will do so. My
wife does not understand my art, nor could be expected to have any
interest in it, and Cyril is only a child. So I turn naturally to you,
as indeed I do for everything, and would like you to have all my works.
The deficit that their sale will produce may be lodged to the credit of
Cyril and Vivian. Well, if you are my literary executor, you must be in
possession of the only document that gives any explanation of my
extraordinary behaviour . . . When you have read the letter, you will see
the psychological explanation of a course of conduct that from the
outside seems a combination of absolute idiotcy with vulgar bravado. Some
day the truth will have to be known--not necessarily in my lifetime . . .
but I am not prepared to sit in the grotesque pillory they put me into,
for all time; for the simple reason that I inherited from my father and
mother a name of high distinction in literature and art, and I cannot for
eternity allow that name to be degraded. I don't defend my conduct. I
explain it. Also there are in my letter certain passages which deal with
my mental development in prison, and the inevitable evolution of my
character and intellectual attitude towards life that has taken place:
and I want you and others who still stand by me and have affection for me
to know exactly in what mood and manner I hope to face the world. Of
course from one point of view I know that on the day of my release I
shall be merely passing from one prison into another, and there are times
when the whole world seems to me no larger than my cell and as full of
terror for me. Still I believe that at the beginning God made a world
for each separate man, and in that world which is within us we should
seek to live. At any rate you will read those parts of my letter with
less pain than the others. Of course I need not remind you how fluid a
thing thought is with me--with us all--and of what an evanescent
substance are our emotions made. Still I do see a sort of possible goal
towards which, through art, I may progress. It is not unlikely that you
may help me.
As regards the mode of copying: of course it is too long for any
amanuensis to attempt: and your own handwriting, dear Robbie, in your
last letter seems specially designed to remind me that the task is not to
be yours. I think that the only thing to do is to be thoroughly modern
and to have it typewritten. Of course the MS. should not pass out of
your control, but could you not get Mrs. Marshall to send down one of her
type-writing girls--women are the most reliable as they have no memory
for the important--to Hornton Street or Phillimore Gardens, to do it
under your supervision? I assure you that the typewriting machine, when
played with expression, is not more annoying than the piano when played
by a sister or near relation. Indeed many among those most devoted to
domesticity prefer it. I wish the copy to be done not on tissue paper
but on good paper such as is used for plays, and a wide rubricated margin
should be left for corrections . . . If the copy is done at Hornton
Street the lady typewriter might be fed through a lattice in the door,
like the Cardinals when they elect a Pope; till she comes out on the
balcony and can say to the world: "Habet Mundus Epistolam"; for indeed it
is an Encyclical letter, and as the Bulls of the Holy Father are named
from their opening words, it may be spoken of as the "_Epistola_: _in
Carcere et Vinculis_. " . . . In point of fact, Robbie, prison life makes
one see people and things as they really are. That is why it turns one
to stone. It is the people outside who are deceived by the illusions of
a life in constant motion. They revolve with life and contribute to its
unreality. We who are immobile both see and know. Whether or not the
letter does good to narrow natures and hectic brains, to me it has done
good. I have "cleansed my bosom of much perilous stuff"; to borrow a
phrase from the poet whom you and I once thought of rescuing from the
Philistines. I need not remind you that mere expression is to an artist
the supreme and only mode of life. It is by utterance that we live. Of
the many, many things for which I have to thank the Governor there is
none for which I am more grateful than for his permission to write fully
and at as great a length as I desire. For nearly two years I had within
a growing burden of bitterness, of much of which I have now got rid. On
the other side of the prison wall there are some poor black
soot-besmirched trees that are just breaking out into buds of an almost
shrill green. I know quite well what they are going through. They are
finding expression.
Ever yours,
OSCAR.
--_Letter from Reading Prison to Robert Ross_.
CAREY STREET
Where there is sorrow there in holy ground. Some day people will realise
what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do,--and
natures like his can realise it. When I was brought down from my prison
to the Court of Bankruptcy, between two policemen,--waited in the long
dreary corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and
simple hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as,
handcuffed and with bowed head, I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven
for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode
of love, that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or
stooped to kiss the leper on the cheek. I have never said one single
word to him about what he did.
I do not know to the present moment
whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action. It is not a
thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal words. I store it
in the treasure-house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that
I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed and kept
sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears. When wisdom has been
profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of
those who have sought to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my
mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act of love has unsealed
for me all the wells of pity: made the desert blossom like a rose, and
brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the
wounded, broken, and great heart of the world. When people are able to
understand, not merely how beautiful ---'s action was, but why it meant
so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they will
realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. . . .
The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we
are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man's life, a misfortune, a
casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of
one who is in prison as of one who is 'in trouble' simply. It is the
phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love
in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison
makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air
and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome
when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our
very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are
broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still live. We are
denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring
balm to the bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain. --_De
Profundis_.
SORROW WEARS NO MASK
Sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the
type and test of all great art. What the artist is always looking for is
the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible: in
which the outward is expressive of the inward: in which form reveals. Of
such modes of existence there are not a few: youth and the arts
preoccupied with youth may serve as a model for us at one moment: at
another we may like to think that, in its subtlety and sensitiveness of
impression, its suggestion of a spirit dwelling in external things and
making its raiment of earth and air, of mist and city alike, and in its
morbid sympathy of its moods, and tones, and colours, modern landscape
art is realising for us pictorially what was realised in such plastic
perfection by the Greeks. Music, in which all subject is absorbed in
expression and cannot be separated from it, is a complex example, and a
flower or a child a simple example, of what I mean; but sorrow is the
ultimate type both in life and art.
Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and
callous. But behind sorrow there is always sorrow. Pain, unlike
pleasure, wears no mask. Truth in art is not any correspondence between
the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the
resemblance of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to
the form itself; it is no echo coming from a hollow hill, any more than
it is a silver well of water in the valley that shows the moon to the
moon and Narcissus to Narcissus. Truth in art is the unity of a thing
with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made
incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no
truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to
be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the
appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow
have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there
is pain.
More than this, there is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary
reality. I have said of myself that I was one who stood in symbolic
relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not a single
wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in
symbolic relation to the very secret of life. For the secret of life is
suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything. When we begin to
live, what is sweet is so sweet to us, and what is bitter so bitter, that
we inevitably direct all our desires towards pleasures, and seek not
merely for a 'month or twain to feed on honeycomb,' but for all our years
to taste no other food, ignorant all the while that we may really be
starving the soul. --_De Profundis_.
VITA NUOVA
Far off, like a perfect pearl, one can see the city of God. It is so
wonderful that it seems as if a child could reach it in a summer's day.
And so a child could. But with me and such as me it is different. One
can realise a thing in a single moment, but one loses it in the long
hours that follow with leaden feet. It is so difficult to keep 'heights
that the soul is competent to gain. ' We think in eternity, but we move
slowly through time; and how slowly time goes with us who lie in prison I
need not tell again, nor of the weariness and despair that creep back
into one's cell, and into the cell of one's heart, with such strange
insistence that one has, as it were, to garnish and sweep one's house for
their coming, as for an unwelcome guest, or a bitter master, or a slave
whose slave it is one's chance or choice to be.
And, though at present my friends may find it a hard thing to believe, it
is true none the less, that for them living in freedom and idleness and
comfort it is more easy to learn the lessons of humility than it is for
me, who begin the day by going down on my knees and washing the floor of
my cell. For prison life with its endless privations and restrictions
makes one rebellious. The most terrible thing about it is not that it
breaks one's heart--hearts are made to be broken--but that it turns one's
heart to stone. One sometimes feels that it is only with a front of
brass and a lip of scorn that one can get through the day at all. And he
who is in a state of rebellion cannot receive grace, to use the phrase of
which the Church is so fond--so rightly fond, I dare say--for in life as
in art the mood of rebellion closes up the channels of the soul, and
shuts out the airs of heaven. Yet I must learn these lessons here, if I
am to learn them anywhere, and must be filled with joy if my feet are on
the right road and my face set towards 'the gate which is called
beautiful,' though I may fall many times in the mire and often in the
mist go astray.
This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it,
is of course no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by means of
development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember when I was at
Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round Magdalen's
narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my
degree, that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden
of the world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion
in my soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake
was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to
me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its
shadow and its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair,
suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from lips in pain,
remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-
abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head, the
anguish that chooses sack-cloth for its raiment and into its own drink
puts gall:--all these were things of which I was afraid. And as I had
determined to know nothing of them, I was forced to taste each of them in
turn, to feed on them, to have for a season, indeed, no other food at
all.
I don't regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it
to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no
pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup
of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived
on honeycomb. But to have continued the same life would have been wrong
because it would have been limiting. I had to pass on. The other half
of the garden had its secrets for me also. --_De Profundis_.
THE GRAND ROMANTIC
It is when he deals with a sinner that Christ is most romantic, in the
sense of most real. The world had always loved the saint as being the
nearest possible approach to the perfection of God. Christ, through some
divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being
the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary
desire was not to reform people, any more than his primary desire was to
a relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief into a tedious honest
man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoners' Aid
Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a
publican into a Pharisee would not have seemed to him a great
achievement. But in a manner not yet understood of the world he regarded
sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful holy things and modes
of perfection.
It seems a very dangerous idea. It is--all great ideas are dangerous.
That it was Christ's creed admits of no doubt. That it is the true creed
I don't doubt myself.
Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he
would be unable to realise what he had done. The moment of repentance is
the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one
alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say
in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past. ' Christ
showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing
he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said--I feel quite
certain about it--that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and
wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-
herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments
in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare
say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worth
while going to prison.
There is something so unique about Christ. Of course just as there are
false dawns before the dawn itself, and winter days so full of sudden
sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into squandering its gold
before its time, and make some foolish bird call to its mate to build on
barren boughs, so there were Christians before Christ. For that we
should be grateful. The unfortunate thing is that there have been none
since. I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi. But then God had
given him at his birth the soul of a poet, as he himself when quite young
had in mystical marriage taken poverty as his bride: and with the soul of
a poet and the body of a beggar he found the way to perfection not
difficult. He understood Christ, and so he became like him. We do not
require the Liber Conformitatum to teach us that the life of St. Francis
was the true _Imitatio Christi_, a poem compared to which the book of
that name is merely prose.
Indeed, that is the charm about Christ, when all is said: he is just like
a work of art. He does not really teach one anything, but by being
brought into his presence one becomes something. And everybody is
predestined to his presence. Once at least in his life each man walks
with Christ to Emmaus. --_De Profundis_.
CLAPHAM JUNCTION
My lot has been one of public infamy, of long imprisonment, of misery, of
ruin, of disgrace, but I am not worthy of it--not yet, at any rate. I
remember that I used to say that I thought I could bear a real tragedy if
it came to me with purple pall and a mask of noble sorrow, but that the
dreadful thing about modernity was that it put tragedy into the raiment
of comedy, so that the great realities seemed commonplace or grotesque or
lacking in style. It is quite true about modernity. It has probably
always been true about actual life. It is said that all martyrdoms
seemed mean to the looker on. The nineteenth century is no exception to
the rule.
Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in
style; our very dress makes us grotesque. We are the zanies of sorrow.
We are clowns whose hearts are broken. We are specially designed to
appeal to the sense of humour. On November 13th, 1895, I was brought
down here from London. From two o'clock till half-past two on that day I
had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress,
and handcuffed, for the world to look at. I had been taken out of the
hospital ward without a moment's notice being given to me. Of all
possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people saw me they
laughed. Each train as it came up swelled the audience. Nothing could
exceed their amusement. That was, of course, before they knew who I was.
As soon as they had been informed they laughed still more. For half an
hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering
mob. --_De Profundis_.
THE BROKEN RESOLUTION
We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single
thing. We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and
that the Earth is mother to us all. As a consequence our art is of the
moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and deals
directly with things. I feel sure that in elemental forces there is
purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence.
Of course to one so modern as I am, 'Enfant de mon siecle,' merely to
look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I
think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the
lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir
into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss
the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for
me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the
first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the
tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to
whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of
some rose. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not
a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a
shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my
nature does not answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those
'pour qui le monde visible existe. '
Still, I am conscious now that behind all this beauty, satisfying though
it may be, there is some spirit hidden of which the painted forms and
shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with this spirit that I
desire to become in harmony. I have grown tired of the articulate
utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life,
the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely
necessary for me to find it somewhere.
All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences
of death; and three times have I been tried. The first time I left the
box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of
detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society,
as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer;
but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have
clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence
I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may
walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my
footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in
great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole. --_De Profundis_.
DOMESTICITY AT BERNEVAL
DIEPPE,
June 1st, 1897.
My Dear Robbie,--I propose to live at Berneval. I will _not_ live in
Paris, nor in Algiers, nor in Southern Italy. Surely a house for a year,
if I choose to continue there, at 32 pounds is absurdly cheap. I could
not live cheaper at a hotel. You are penny foolish, and pound foolish--a
dreadful state for my financier to be in. I told M. Bonnet that my
bankers were MM. Ross et Cie, banquiers celebres de Londres--and now you
suddenly show me that you have no place among the great financial people,
and are afraid of any investment over 31 pounds, 10s. It is merely the
extra ten shillings that baffles you. As regards people living on me,
and the extra bedrooms: dear boy, there is no one who would stay with me
but you, and you will pay your own bill at the hotel for meals; and as
for your room, the charge will be nominally 2 francs 50 centimes a night,
but there will be lots of extras such as _bougie, bain_ and hot water,
and all cigarettes smoked in the bedrooms are charged extra. And if any
one does not take the extras, of course he is charged more:--
Bain, 25 C.
Pas de bain, 50 C.
Cigarette dans la chambre a coucher, 10 C. pour chaque cigarette.
Pas de cigarette dans la chambre a coucher, 20 C. pour chaque
cigarette.
This is the system at all good hotels. If Reggie comes, of course he
will pay a little more: I cannot forget that he gave me a dressing-case.
Sphinxes pay a hundred per cent more than any one else--they always did
in Ancient Egypt.
But seriously, Robbie, if people stayed with me, of course they would pay
their _pension_ at the hotel. They would have to: except architects. A
modern architect, like modern architecture, doesn't pay. But then I know
only one architect and you are hiding him somewhere from me. I believe
that he is as extinct as the dado, of which now only fossil remains are
found, chiefly in the vicinity of Brompton, where they are sometimes
discovered by workmen excavating. They are usually embedded in the old
Lincrusta Walton strata, and are rare consequently.
I visited M. le Cure {4} to-day. He has a charming house and a _jardin
potager_. He showed me over the church. To-morrow I sit in the choir by
his special invitation. He showed me all his vestments. To-morrow he
really will be charming in red. He knows I am a heretic, and believes
Pusey is still alive. He says that God will convert England on account
of England's kindness to _les pretres exiles_ at the time of the
Revolution. It is to be the reward of that sea-lashed island.
Stained glass windows are wanted in the church; he has only six; fourteen
more are needed. He gets them at 300 francs--12 pounds--a window in
Paris. I was nearly offering half a dozen, but remembered you, and so
only gave him something _pour les pauvres_. You had a narrow escape,
Robbie. You should be thankful.
I hope the 40 pounds is on its way, and that the 60 pounds will follow. I
am going to hire a boat. It will save walking and so be an economy in
the end. Dear Robbie, I must start well. If the life of St. Francis of
Assissi awaits me I shall not be angry. Worse things might happen.
Yours,
OSCAR.
