Both America and England today offer terrifying examples of the despotism of an unenlightened and vulgar public opinion in all the highest concerns of man—in art, in literature and in religion. There is no despotism on earth so soul- destroying to the artist: it is baser and more degrading than anything known in Russia. The consequences of this tyranny of an uneducated middle class and a barbarian aristocracy are shown in detail in the trial of Oscar Wilde and in the savagery with which he was treated by the English officers of justice.
CHAPTER XV—THE QUEEN VS. WILDE: THE FIRST TRIAL
As soon as I heard that Oscar Wilde was arrested and bail refused, I tried to get permission to visit him in Holloway. I was told I should have to see him in a kind of barred cage; and talk to him from the distance of at least a yard. It seemed to me too painful for both of us, so I went to the higher authorities and got permission to see him in a private room. The Governor met me at the entrance of the prison: to my surprise he was more than courteous; charmingly kind and sympathetic.
"We all hope," he said, "that he will soon be free; this is no place for him.
Everyone likes him, everyone. It is a great pity."
He evidently felt much more than he said, and my heart went out to him. He left me in a bare room furnished with a small square deal table and two kitchen chairs. In a moment or two Oscar came in accompanied by a warder. In silence we clasped hands. He looked miserably anxious and pulled down and I felt that I had nothing to do but cheer him up.
"I am glad to see you," I cried. "I hope the warders are kind to you?"
"Yes, Frank," he replied in a hopeless way, "but everyone else is against me: it is hard."
"Don't harbour that thought," I answered; "many whom you don't know, and whom you will never know, are on your side. Stand for them and for the myriads who are coming afterwards and make a fight of it."
"I'm afraid I'm not a fighter, Frank, as you once said," he replied sadly, "and they won't give me bail. How can I get evidence or think in this place of torture? Fancy refusing me bail," he went on, "though I stayed in London when I might have gone abroad."
"You should have gone," I cried in French, hot with indignation; "why didn't you go, the moment you came out of the court?"