Tragedy Of Oscar Wilde

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

Tragedy Of Oscar Wilde

TO say that I knew Oscar Wilde well would be ridiculous, for in 1 89 1 I was only a struggling actor and he was one of the great literary figures of the day. Still, I can say that I met liim constantly, and that I naturally always felt it was a great privilege to he in the companv of so brilliant a man. who, whether at'clubs or with such giants as George Meredith, Henry living, Gilbert, Sargent, Shannon ami many of their contemporaries, was always a kindly, amusing and charming man. and as such I shall for ever think of him. To-day I am confining myself tn the tragic happenings concerning Oscar Wilde at the Old Bailey, happenings which robbed literature of a genius, and the world of a man whoso wit and epigrammatic talk placed him head and shoulders above his fellows. It may perhaps he asked why I should have taken myself to witness the downfall of a fricn'd. Jly answer is a simple one—because he was « friend, and in hisHragic hour he had to face a world of enemies, deserted and almost alone. Wilde in the Dock. I have always held that in a friend's house no man should wear spectacles, and though the. charges made against Oscar Wilde were appalling in (he extreme, I shut inv ears to them and sat a sad spectator,'in the hope that if he noticed, me—and J am glad to say he did—he would realise that in his extremity there was someone he had known who, although only an obscure person, was not part of the mob who were howling for his blood. Of his fellow prisoner who stood charged beside him in the dock, one Taylor, who went by the nickname of Jlarravilla Cocoa, there is nothing to he said except that he was "of a class." Of the great figures in the case itself, looking back through the' years, I visualise only three: Edward Clarke, Edward Carson and Wilde himself.

_j <-: Their brilliant intellects dwarfed all others and, listening to the battle in which they were heavily engaged, the words which fell from the judge's lips throughout the trial, and the manner of his summing up, made him appear to nic by comparison little better than a bleating fourth-form schoolboy at loss in the presence of three headmasters. On the last day of the third trial connected with Oscar Wilde, the court was crowded to overflowing. On every side were to be seen faces of well-known public men, and, incredible to relate, there were also present several society women who, daring to listen to unmentionable details, must indeed have been lost to all sense of shame. In the zenith of his popularity, Wilde may have been an exquisite, faultlessly dressed, but he was never effeminate. His appearance and bearing were things to be observed and commented on as unusual, no doubt, but nothing more. It always struck mo that the attitude he adopted was that of a somewhat patronising person who, having been made a Freeman of London Society, strolled idly among the gilded throng who had elected him a licensed jester, to - rap their knuckles and lampoon their foibles most unmercifully. He Had Courage. This half-cynical, half-humorous attitude he adopted towards the world ho preserved to the end, for even when in the cage which held him his manner conveyed an almost Ncroosrme contempt for a social system which he had never taken any pains to conceal. That Wilde had courage almost to tho last cannot be gainsaid. Surely no human being ever plumbed the' depths of misery more than did :* ' ! "

Wilde in those last hours when, the judge having slimmed up, he knew from the faces-of the jury that all hope for him had vanished. Time passed and the jury returned to their box. The crowded court awaited the coming of the judge, and in a deadly stillness Wilde appeared from helow to hear the verdict of his fellow men. Ho hardly glanced at the jury, but his gaze wandered round the court and for a second fell on me. I hope he saw in my eyes the sorrow I felt for him. He made no sign of recognition. 11l answer to the clerk's unemotional and formal question the word "guilty" fell from the lips of the jury's foreman. I have seen many awful happenings at (he Old Jiailey, but to me no death sentancc has ever seemed so terrible as the (inc. Air. Justic Wills delivered when his duty called upon him to destroy and take from the world a man who had given it to much.

By--Sir Seymour Hicks

His speech concluded with the following words: "I shall, under the circumstances, be expected to pass the severest sentence the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate. The sentence is that you bo imprisoned and be kept to hard labour for two -years." Wilde, who bad stood clutching the edge of the dock in front of him leaned forward and gripped it more tightly and made an attempt to speak. He seemed incapable of doing so, however, and in answer to a whispered command from the warder at his side, turned heavily towards the stairs which led to the gateway of a greater hell than even he with all his vision could over have imagined. Sank After Release. There is no shadow of doubt that Oscar Wilde's personality was a dual one. Neither the life of Duhousq and Lcsurques nor that of Jckyll and Hyde was further removed one from the other than his. As weak men who have abstained from drink for long periods and then seek solace in wild alcoholic debauch, so- it was with him. Only once after the Old Bailey tragedy did I ever see or speak to him. This was in Paris some time after his release. Charles TYohman, the eclehrated theatrical manager, than whom no kinder man ever lived, and with whom I was intimately connected in business, hearing that I was running over to theFrench capital to see a new piece, sent for me, and, handing me a cheque for £200, said, "Look who it is made payable to." It was to Oscar Wilde. "Give him this if you can find him," he told me, "and say it is on account of n new play I want him to write for mo. Of course, I know he'll never send me anything, but—well, he was a great man and I exeet he's in a pretty bad way—and thnt's all there is to it." I made it my business to find Wilde, and ran him to earth one evening at a small restaurant in Montmartre. I explained my errand, and ho took the cheque, of which I am sure he was sorcl3' in need. I forget what he said verbatim, but it was something on these lines: "Tell Mr. Frohman lie shall have a very beautiful play with a wonderful plot and wonderful lines, and wonderful characters in it. And I am sure he will have a wonderful success." He knew, I am sure, that he "Was incapable of settling down to do work of any kind—the smile behind his hand told me so—but I said I would deliver the message and hastily bade him good- ■ bye, for he had as his companions two - creatures of the kind who had been his , ruin. ; I was sick and disquieted to think , that the man who had written "The ' Ballad of Heading Gaol," and more especially "De Profundis," could, after his return to the world, do anything but shun all that was vile. Ho was mad. I was shown a photograph of him ! taken after his death in Paris. He was i not to be recognised as the Wildo I had -" known. It Mas the picture of a bearded t man lying on a miserable iron bedstead r far 100 short for his body in a dingy little bedroom at an hotel in the Latin ) Quarter. The name of the hotel was the 1 d'Alsacc-Lorraine in the Bue des Beaux 1 Arto—the number 13. _ 4_