As soon as Mr. Justice Charles had taken his seat, the prosecuting counsel rose and said that having considered the indictment, he had decided not to ask for a verdict in the two counts charging the prisoners with conspiracy. Subdued expressions of surprise were audible from the public gallery when Mr. Gill delivered himself of this dramatic announcement, and the sensation was strengthened a little later when Sir Edward Clarke informed the jury that both the prisoners desired to give evidence and would be called as witnesses. These matters having been determined upon, Sir Edward Clarke rose and proceeded to make some severe criticisms upon the conduct of the prosecution in what he referred to as the literary part of the case. Hidden meanings, he said, had been most unjustly “read” into the poetical and prose works of his client and it seemed that an endeavour, though a futile one, was to be made to convict Mr. Wilde because of a prurient construction which had been placed by his enemies upon certain of his works. He alluded particularly to “Dorian Gray,” which was an allegory, pure and simple. According to the rather musty and far-fetched notions of the prosecution, it was an impure and simple allegory, but Wilde could not fairly be judged, he said, by the standards of other men, for he was a literary eccentric, though intellectually a giant, and he did not profess to be guided by the same sentiments as animated other and less highly-endowed men. He then called Mr. Wilde. The prisoner rose with seeming alacrity from his place in the dock, walked with a firm tread and dignified demeanour to the witness-box, and leaning across the rail in the same easy and not ungraceful attitude that he assumed when examined by Mr. Carson in the libel action, prepared to answer the questions addressed to him by his counsel. Wilde was first interrogated as to his previous career. In the year 1884, he had married a Miss Lloyd, and from that time to the present he had continued to live with his wife at 16, Tite Street, Chelsea. He also occupied rooms in St. James’s Place, which were rented for the purposes of his literary labours, as it was quite impossible to secure quiet and mental repose at his own house, when his two young sons were at home. He had heard the evidence in this case against himself, and asserted that there was no shadow of a foundation for the charges of indecent behaviour alleged against himself.
Mr. Gill then rose to cross-examine and the Court at once became on the qui vive. Wilde seemed perfectly calm and did not change his attitude, or tone of polite deprecation.
Mr. Gill.—“You are acquainted with a publication entitled ‘The Chameleon’?”
Witness.—“Very well indeed.”
Mr. Gill.—“Contributors to that journal are friends of yours?”
Witness.—“That is so.”
Mr. Gill.—“I believe that Lord Alfred Douglas was a frequent contributor?”
Witness.—“Hardly that, I think. He wrote some verses occasionally for the ‘Chameleon,’ and, indeed, for other papers.”
Mr. Gill.—“The poems in question were somewhat peculiar?”
Witness.—“They certainly were not mere commonplaces like so much that is labelled poetry.”