“A great deal has been heard about the paradoxes of Oscar Wilde upon Art, Beauty, Conscience and Life! Paradoxes they were, it is true, and we know that some laid themselves open to the charge of exaggeration, and vaulted over the threshold of the Forbidden. But after all, what is a paradox if not, for the most part of the time, the exaltation of an idea in a striking and superior form? As soon as an idea overleaps the low-level of ordinary popular understanding, having ceased to drag behind it the ignoble stumps gathered in the swamps of middle-class morality, and seeks with strong, steadfast wing, to attain the lofty heights of Philosophy, Literature or Art, we at once stigmatize it as a paradox, because, unable ourselves to follow it into those regions which are inaccessible to us, through the weakness of our organs, and we make haste to scotch it and put it under ban by flinging after it curse-laden cries of blame and contempt.
And yet, strange as it may seem, progress cannot be made save by way of paradox, whilst much vaunted common sense—the prized virtue of the imbecile—perpetuates the humdrum routine of daily life. The truth is, we refuse to allow anyone to come and outrage our intellectual sluggishness, or our morality, ready-made like second-hand clothes in a dealer’s shop, or the stupid security of our sheepish preconceptions.
Looked at squarely, that was the veritable crime in the minds of those who sat in judgment on Oscar Wilde.
They could not forgive him for being a thinker, and a man of superior intellect—and for that self-same reason eminently dangerous to other men. Wilde is young and has a future before him, and he has proved by the strong and charming works which he has already given us that he can still do much more in the cause of Beauty and Art. Must we not then admit that it is an abominable thing to risk the killing of something far above all laws, and all morality: the spirit of beauty, for the sake of repressing acts which are not really punishable per se.
For laws change and morality becomes transformed with the transformations of time, with the changeing of latitude and longitude, but beauty remains immaculate, and sheds her light far over the centuries that she alone can rescue from obscurity.”
With these magnificent words of one of the great masters of French prose, we would gladly terminate the present study; but it remains for us to cite the following from the pen of our lately deceased friend, Hugues Rebell, who possessed not only acumen and erudition, but employed a brilliant style and ready wit in the expression of his thoughts:
“Will a day ever come, wrote he, when the deeds of men will be no more judged in the name of religion and morality, but from the point of view of their social importance? When the misdemeanours of a man of wit and of genius, or a clever, elegant man of fashion, shall no longer be judged by the same law as that which condemns a stolid navvy or a dockyard hand? Far from believing in our much belauded progress, I am inclined alas, to think that we are really far behind our forefathers in tolerance, and above all in the ideas that govern our idea of social equality. The downfall of the sentiment of hierarchy seriously compromises the existence of some of the best men amongst us. It is not crime merely which is tracked and hounded down, but all that strays aside for a moment from every-day habits and customs. So-and-so, because he is not like other people inspires aversion, even horror on the part of those who take off their hats most respectfully to the successful swindler; and whilst the Police complacently allow the perpetration in our great cities of robberies and murders, they make a raid on the unfortunate bookseller who happens to have stowed away carefully in his back-shop, a few illustrations where the high deeds and gestures of Venus are too faithfully reproduced. These paltry persecutions would only serve to bring a smile to our lips were it not that everyone is more or less exposed to their arbitrary measures. Men are far less free to-day than they formerly were, because they are too much dominated by a large number of ignorant and groundless prejudices. Ferocious gaolers fetter and imprison their minds for their greater overthrow; no longer do they believe in God, whilst giving implicit faith to vain Science which, making small account of the great diversity of character and temperament amongst human beings, holds up for unique example, a healthy and virtuous individual who never had any real existence except in the imagination of fools; and whilst no longer following any of the old religions, they submit themselves with equanimity to the condemnation of so-called Human Justice, which more often than not is radically venal, and impresses them far more than did in olden times, the ex-communicating bulls of Popes who had usurped the authority of God.”
As for the sentence of hard labour passed upon Wilde, a description would fail to convey to the inexperienced reader a full idea of its barbarous severity. Sir Edward Clarke, the counsel for the defense, gave substantially the following reply to the representative of a Paris newspaper:
“My opinion is that Oscar Wilde will work out his sentence. He has received the heaviest punishment that it was possible to inflict upon him. You cannot possibly form any notion of the extreme severity of “hard labour” which is implacable in its régime of absorbing and exigent regularity.
“Oscar Wilde, who wore his hair long like the esthete he was, was obliged to undergo the indignity of having it cut close, and wearing the sack-cloth suit bearing the broad-arrow mark of the convict. Thrust into a small narrow cell with only a bed, or rather a wooden plank in guise of a bed, for all his furniture,—a bed without a matress, and with a bolster made of wood, this talented man was made to pass the long weary months of his martyrdom.