January 1893, Babbacombe Cliff My Own Boy, Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first. Always, with undying love, Yours, OSCAR.

 

	ALFRED, YOUR INTIMACY WITH THIS MAN WILDE...IT MUST EITHER CEASE OR I WILL DISOWN YOU AND STOP ALL MONEY SUPPLIES. I AM NOT GOING TO TRY AND ANALYSE THIS INTIMACY, AND I MAKE NO CHARGE; BUT TO MY MIND TO POSE AS A THING IS AS BAD AS TO BE IT... YOUR DISGUSTED, SO-CALLED FATHER, QUEENSBERRY

The 'Love that dare not speak its name' in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made as the very basis for his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michaelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michaelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the 'Love that dare not speak its name', and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.

IT IS NO USE FOR ME TO ADDRESS YOU. PEOPLE WHO CAN DO THESE THINGS MUST BE DEAD TO ALL SENSE OF SHAME, AND ONE CANNOT HOPE TO PRODUCE ANY EFFECT UPON THEM. IT IS THE WORST CASE THAT I HAVE EVER TRIED...THAT YOU, WILDE, HAVE BEEN THE CENTRE OF A CIRCLE OF EXTENSIVE CORRPUTION OF THE MOST HIDEOUS KIND AMONG YOUNG MEN, IT IS EQUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DOUBT. I SHALL, UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES, BE EXPECTED TO PASS THE SEVEREST SENTENCE THAT THE LAW ALLOWS. IN MY JUDGEMENT IT IS TOTALLY INADEQUATE FOR SUCH A CASE AS THIS.

THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT IS THAT YOU BE IMPRISIONED AND KEPT TO HARD LABOR FOR TWO YEARS.

 
 

	The Wilde case is over, and at last the curtain has fallen on the most horrible scandal which has disturbed social life in London for many years. The cries of "Shame!" with which the sentence pronounced by Mr. Justice Wills was received, indicate that a certain section of the public in court regarded the verdict with disfavour, and that feeling will very possibly be shared by a section of the public outside. But it is well to remember, that the jury are in a position to form the best and honest opinion. They have heard all the evidence and seen the witneses in the box, while outsiders have only newspaper reports--necessarily containing the barest suggestion of the gruesome facts--to guide them. Yet even those who have read the reports and have taken the trouble to understand what lies between the lines, cannot help but feel that Wilde and his associate...have got off lightly. Society is well rid of these ghouls and their hideous practices. Wilde practically confessed his guilt at the outset, and the unclean creatures with whom he chose to herd specifically owned that the charges were true. It is at a terrible cost that society has purged itself of these loathsome importers of exotic vice, but the gain is worth the price, and it is refreshing to feel that for once, at least, justice has been done. News of the World, London, 26 May 1895		This ends a scandalous affair. One may be permitted a certain regret that others will not endure the same fate and that it has not been possible to carry out the big wash of dirty linen that this case has shown to be necessary. It is difficult, however, not to feel deep sympathy for the wife and children of Wilde, who is ending his literary career in such a wretched fashion. Le Figaro, Paris, 26 May 1895		Beyond an expression of deep regret that a brilliant career should have come to so terrible an end, we have two, and only two, comments to make upon the Wilde case. The first is that if this trial had not resulted in a conviction the rightful law relating to such offenses might as well has been erased from the Statute-book. Judge and jury alike are to be congratulated upon the unflinching discharge of a grave responsibility. Our second comment is that the lesson of the trial ought not to be lost upon the headmasters, and all others who are responsible for the morals, of public schools. It rests with them, more probably than with anybody else, to exorcise this pestilence. The Star London, 27 May 1895

 

 
 
 

	A Reuter telegram from Paris states that OSCAR WILDE died there yesterday afternoon from meningitis. The melancholy end to a career which one promised so well is stated to have come in an obscure hotel in the Latin quarter. Here the once brilliant man of letters was living, exiled from his country and from the society of his countrymen. The verdict that a jury passed upon his conduct at the Old Bailey in May, 1895, destroyed for ever his reputation and condemned him to ignoble obscurity for the end of his days. When he had served his sentence of two year's imprisonment, he was broken in health as well as bankrupt in fame and fortune. Death has soon ended what must have been a life of wretchedness and unavailing regret. Wilde was the son of the late Sir William Wilde, an eminent Irish surgeon. His mother was a graceful writer, both in prose and verse. He had a brilliant career at Oxford, where he took a first-class both in classical moderations and in Lit. Hum., and also won the Newdigate Prize for English verse for a poem on Ravenna. Even before he left the University in 1878 Wilde had become known as one of the most affected of the professors of the aesthetic craze, and for several years it was as the typical aesthete that he kept himself before the notice of the public. At the same time he was a man of far greater originality and power of mind than many of the apostles of aestheticism. As his Oxford career showed, he had undoubted talents in many directions, talents which might have been brought to fruition had it not been for his craving after notoriety. He was known as a poet of graceful diction; later on as a playwright of skill and subtle humour. A novel of his, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," attracted much attention, and his sayings passed from mouth to mouth as those of one of the professed wits of the age. When he became a dramatist his plays had all the characteristics of his conversations. His first piece, Lady Windermere's Fan, was produced in 1892. A Woman of No Importance followed in 1893. An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest were both running at the time of his disappearance from English life. All these pieces had the same qualities--a paradoxical humour and a perverted outlook on life being the most prominent. They were packed with witty sayings, and the author's cleverness gave him at once a position in the dramatic world. The revelations of the criminal trial in 1895 naturally made them impossible for some years. Recently, however, one of them was revived, though not at a West End theater. After his release in 1897, Wilde published "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," a poem of considerable but unequal power. He also appeared in print as a critic of our prison system, against the results of which he entered a passionate protest. For the last three years he has lived abroad. It is stated on the authority of the Dublin Evening Mail that he was recently received into the Roman Catholic Church. Mrs. Oscar Wilde died not long ago, leaving two children.