I am the Love which dares not tell its name
“The Love referred to,” replied Wilde, “is that which exists between a man of mature years and a young man; the love of David and of Jonathan. It is the same love that Plato made the basis of his philosophy; it is that love which is sung in the Sonnets of Shakespeare and of Michael-Angelo; it is a profound spiritual affection, as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, pure and noble; it is intellectual, the love of a man possessing full experience of life, and of a young man full of all the joy and all the hope of the future.”
There in that struggle in the midst of thick darkness, this must have been the cry of his tormented soul, a breath of pure air as he passed, a perfumed memory ... then there came a few arrow flights badly winged which only wounded his own heart.
He defended himself in an indifferent way according to some people, although it must be admitted that he gave the answers that were necessary and becoming, and, in some cases, compelled his judges, who were no better than the mouth-pieces of the crowd, to confess the hatred that the worship of beauty had inspired.
“However strange may have been his attitude, that attitude could not have been indifferent to anyone. Those who have been fortunate enough to laugh at the portrait that René Boylesve has drawn of the æsthete in his fine novel “Le Parfum des Iles Borromées,” would find it difficult to make a mock of the man who accepted with superb disinterestedness, the torture that he knew beforehand the judges would inevitably inflict upon him.
Although he may not have been a great poet, although the pretext of his equivocal mode of living was taken to condemn him, we cannot lose sight of the art and of the literary craftsman that were condemned at the same time with him.”[10]
We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised.[11]
This bitter denunciation of English mock-modesty by the brilliant Essayist rests upon thoroughly justifiable grounds. Once again in the dolorous history of humanity, the grotesque farce was enacted of chasing forth the scapegoat into the wilderness to bear away the sins of the people. But, in this instance, the unhappy creature was not only laden with the sins of the tribe; a heavier burden still had been added to all the others: the fearful burden of the mad, unreasoned hatred of the sinners. Indeed he, whose share in the general load of sin was the greatest, sought to add more hatred than all the others to the great fardel under which the victim staggered, and believing himself so much the more innocent that the abjection of the unfortunate wretch was complete, would have been glad had it been in his power to help even the public hangman in the execution of his nefarious task. We have observed that through some diabolical strain in human nature, the evil joy which creates scandal and gives rise to a man’s downfall, increases in intensity if the victim happens to be a man of superior rank and talent.
On voit briller au fond des prunelles haineuses,
L’orgueil mystérieux de souiller la Beauté.
How great must have been the delighted intoxication of numberless weak minds when they were impelled, in the midst of a silence that braver and clearer spirits dared not break, to screech out vociferations against Art and Thought, denouncing these as the accomplices of the momentary aberrations of him who erstwhile worshipped at their shrine. Here in France at least, men knew better how to restrain themselves, and there were even a few courageous wielders of talented pens who did not hesitate to use their abilities in favour of their Anglo-Saxon colleague. Hugues Rebell published in the Mercure de France that Défense d’Oscar Wilde, the calm and tempered logic of which is still fresh to many minds. A number of writers and artists even held a meeting of protestation; but, of course, all this had not the slightest effect on the judicial position of Wilde. It was generally felt that the ferocious outcry raised against the unhappy man “who had been found out” was because that man was a poet, and not so much because he had gone counter to the manners of his time. Amongst all the mingled shouting and laughter, the arguments for and the arguments against, the voice of one man was heard stentorian and clear above all the rest, that voice belonged to Octave Mirbeau, a puissant master of the French tongue, and a brilliant writer and dramatist. The following lines of suppressed anger and large-minded charity emanated from his pen: