Mr. Gill.—“I should like to hear it.”
Witness.—“Lord Alfred explained that the word ‘shame’ was used in the sense of modesty, i. e. to feel shame or not to feel shame.”
Mr. Gill.—“You can, perhaps, understand that such verses as these would not be acceptable to the reader with an ordinarily balanced mind?”
Witness.—“I am not prepared to say. It appears to me to be a question of taste, temperament and individuality. I should say that one man’s poetry is another man’s poison!” (Loud laughter.)
Mr. Gill.—“I daresay! There is another sonnet. What construction can be put on the line, ‘I am the love that dare not speak its name’?”
Witness.—“I think the writer’s meaning is quite unambiguous. The love he alluded to was that between an elder and younger man, as between David and Jonathan; such love as Plato made the basis of his philosophy; such as was sung in the sonnets of Shakespeare and Michael Angelo; that deep spiritual affection that was as pure as it was perfect. It pervaded great works of art like those of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. Such as ‘passeth the love of woman.’ It was beautiful, it was pure, it was noble, it was intellectual—this love of an elder man with his experience of life, and the younger with all the joy and hope of life before him.”
The witness made this speech with great emphasis and some signs of emotion, and there came from the gallery, at its conclusion, a medley of applause and hisses which his lordship at once ordered to be suppressed.
Mr. Gill.—“I wish to call your attention to the style of your correspondence with Lord A. Douglas.”
Witness.—“I am ready. I am never ashamed of the style of any of my writings.”
Mr. Gill.—“You are fortunate—or shall I say shameless? I refer to passages in two letters in particular.”