The Poet's Atonement

( Originally Published 1922 )

IT HARDLY seems a decade since the disgrace, the trial and sentence of Oscar Wilde. His death followed so close upon his punishment as to give the deepest tragic value to the lesson of his fall. There was in truth nothing left him to do but die, after he had penned the most poignantly pathetic poem and the most strangely moving confession (which is yet a subtle vindication) that have been given to the world since the noon of Byron's fame.

Until the present hour * the world has withheld its pity from that tragedy, as complete in all its features as the Greek conscience would have exacted,—and Oscar Wilde has stood beyond the pale of human sympathy. Only seemed to stand, however, for there are many signs of the reaction, the better judgment which never delays long behind the severest condemnation of the public voice when, as in this case, the circumstances justify an appeal to the higher mercy and humanity.

Socially, Oscar Wilde was executed, and for a brief time it seemed as if his name would stand only in the calendar of the infamous. But men presently remembered that he was a genius, a literary artist of almost unique distinction among English writers, a wit whose talent for paradox and delicately perverse fancy had yielded the world a pure treasure of delight. In the first hue-and-cry of his disgrace, the British public—and to a large extent, the American public also—had taken up moral cudgels not merely against the man himself, but against the writer. His plays were with-drawn from the theatres, his writings from the libraries and bookstalls, and his name was anathema wherever British respectability wields its leaden mace. But though you can pass sentence of social death upon a man, you can not execute a Book! You can not lay your hang-man's hands upon an Idea, and all the edicts of Philistinism are powerless against it. For true genius is the rarest and most precious thing in the world, and God has wisely ordained that the malice or stupidity of men shall not destroy it. And this the world sees to be just, when it has had time to weigh the matter, as in the present instance.

Oscar Wilde went to his prison with the burden of such shame and reprobation as has never been laid upon a literary man of equal eminence. Not a voice was raised for him—the starkness of his guilt silenced even his closest friends and warmest admirers. The world at large approved of his punishment. That small portion of the world which is loth to see the suffering of any sinner, was revolted by the nature of his offence and turned away without a word; the sin of Oscar Wilde claimed no charity and permitted of no discussion. Had his crime been murder itself, his fame and genius would have raised up defenders on every hand. As it was, all mouths were stopped, and the man went broken-hearted to his doom.

But while his body lay in prison, the children of his mind pleaded for him, and such is the invincible appeal of genius, the heart of the world began to be troubled in despite of itself. His books came slowly forth from their hiding-places; his name was restored here and there to a catalogue; a little emotion of pity was awakened in his favor. Then from his prison cell arose a cry of soul-anguish, of utter pathos, of supreme expiation, which stirred the heart of pity to its depths. The feigner was at last believed when the world had made sure of the accents of his agony and could put its finger in each of his wounds. Society had sentenced this poet: the poet both sentenced and forgave society, in "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", thus achieving the most original paradox of his fantastic genius and throwing about his shame something of the halo of martyrdom. He did more than this, in the judgment of his fellow artists—he purchased his redemption and snatched his name from the mire of infamy into which it had been cast. Strange how the world applauded the triumphant genius which only a little while before it had condemned to ignominy and silence !

THE utter and incredible completeness of Wilde's disgrace satisfies the artistic sense, which is never content with half-results. We know that it afforded this kind of satisfaction to the victim himself, exigent of artistic effects even in his catastrophe—and the proof of it is "De Profundis". This book will take rank with the really memorable human documents. It is a true cry of the heart, a sincere utterance of the spiritual depths of this man's nature, when the angels of sorrow had troubled the pool. The only thing that seems to militate against its acceptance as such, is the unfailing presence of that consummate literary art, too conscious of itself, which, as in all the author's work save "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", draws us constantly from the substance to the form. Many persons of critical acumen say they can not see the penitent for the artist. The texture of the sackcloth is too exquisitely wrought and too manifestly of the loom that gave us "Dorian Gray", "Salome", and the rest. How could a man stricken unto death with grief and shame so occupy himself with the vanity of style,—a dilettante even in the hour when fate was crushing him with its heaviest blows? Does not this wonderful piece of work, lambent with all the rays of his lawless genius, show the artificial core of the man as nothing that even he ever did before? And what is the spiritual value of a "confession" which is so obviously a literary tour de force; in which the plain and the simple are avoided with the "precious", lapidary art of a prince of decadents?

So say, or seem to say, the critics. For my-self, I can accept as authentic Wilde's testament of sorrow, even though it be written in a style which often dazzles with beauty, surprises with paradox, and sometimes intoxicates with the rapture of the inevitable artist. He could not teach his hand to unlearn its cunning, strive as he might. Like Narcissus wondering at his own beauty in the fountain, no sooner had he begun to tell the tale of his sorrow than the loveliness of his words seized upon him, and the sorrow that found such expression seemed a thing almost to be desired.

So when Oscar Wilde took up the pen in his prison solitude to make men weep, he did that indeed, but too soon he delighted them as of yore. Art, his adored mistress, whispered her thrilling consolations to the poor castaway—they had taken all from him—liberty, honor, wealth, fame, mother, wife, children, and shut him up in an iron hell, but by God! they should not take her! With this little pen in hand they were all under his feet,—solemn judge, stolid jury, the beast of many heads, and the whited British Philistia. Let them come on now !

But soft, the poet's anger is gone in a moment, for Beauty, faithful to one who had loved her t'other side o' madness, comes and fills his narrow cell with her adorable presence, bringing the glory of the sweet world he has lost,—the breath of dawn, the scented hush of summer nights, the peace of April rains, the pageant of the Autumn lands, the changeful won-der of the sea. Imagination brushes away his bounds of stone and steel to give him all her largess of the past; gracious figures of poesy and romance known and loved from his sinless youth (the man is always an artist, but you see! he can weep) ; the elect company of classic ages to whom his soul does reverence and who seem not to scorn him; the fair heroines of immortal story who in the old days, as his dreams so often told him, had deemed him worthy of their love—he would kneel at their white feet now, but their sweet glances carry no rebuke; the kind poets, his beloved masters in Apollo, who bend upon him no alienated gaze; the he-roes, the sages who had inspired his boyish heart, the sceptred and mighty sons of genius who had roused in him a passion for fame—all come thronging at the summons of memory and fancy—a far dearer and better world than that which had denied, cursed and condemned him, and which he was to know no more.

Then, last of all, when these fair and noble guests were gone, and the glow of their visitation had died out into the old bitter loneliness and sorrow, there came One whose smile had the brightness of the sun and the seven stars. And the poor prisoner of sin cast himself down at the feet of the Presence, as unworthy to look upon that divine radiancy, and the fountains of his heart were broken up as never be-fore. Yet in his weeping he heard a Voice which said, "Thy sin and sorrow are equal, and thou hast still but a little way to go. Come 1"

Then rose up the sinner and fared forth of the spirit with Christ to Emmaus.

And men will yet say that the words which the sinner wrote of that Vision have saved his soul (which not long thereafter was demanded of him) and sweetened his fame forever. But the critics who forget the adjuration, "Judge not lest ye be judged", cry out that the sinner is never to be trusted in these matters, because he writes so well! God, however, is kinder than men or critics. He will forgive the poor poet, in spite of his beautiful style.