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Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions, Volume 1

by Frank Harris

CONTENTS

VOLUME I

Introduction

Chapter I--Oscar's Father and Mother on Trial

Chapter II--Oscar Wilde as a Schoolboy

Chapter III--Trinity, Dublin: Magdalen, Oxford

Chapter IV--Formative Influences: Oscar's Poems

Chapter V--Oscar's Quarrel with Whistler and Marriage

Chapter VI--Oscar Wilde's Faith and Practice

Chapter VII--Oscar's Reputation and Supporters

Chapter VIII--Oscar's Growth to Originality About 1890

Chapter IX--The Summer of Success: Oscar's First Play

Chapter X--The First Meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas

Chapter XI--The Threatening Cloud Draws Nearer

Chapter XII--Danger Signals: the Challenge

Chapter XIII--Oscar Attacks Queensberry and is Worsted

Chapter XIV--How Genius is Persecuted in England

Chapter XV--The Queen vs. Wilde: The First Trial

Chapter XVI--Escape Rejected: The Second Trial and Sentence

VOLUME II

Chapter XVII--Prison and the Effects of Punishment

Chapter XVIII--Mitigation of Punishment; but not Release

Chapter XIX--His St. Martin's Summer: His Best Work

Chapter XX--The Results of His Second Fall: His Genius

Chapter XXI--His Sense of Rivalry; His Love of Life and Laziness

Chapter XXII--"A Great Romantic Passion!"

Chapter XXIII--His Judgments of Writers and of Women

Chapter XXIV--We Argue About His "Pet Vice" and Punishment

Chapter XXV--The Last Hope Lost

Chapter XXVI--The End

Chapter XXVII--A Last Word

Shaw's "Memories"

The Appendix

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 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.

Nice, 1910.

Frank Harris.

CHAPTER I--OSCAR'S FATHER AND MOTHER ON TRIAL

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 L2,000 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 at the beginning 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 overstatement; 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 L40 to go,
but told her she must say it was L20 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.

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