OSCAR WILDE
Acedusa
Copyright Lori Acedusa, 2011
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Man is an omnivore - wherefore should he not bite the hand that feeds?
1. Via Appia
I should think a remittance of twenty pounds monthly,
I should think a glass of champagne cooled against the afternoon
Would suit.
Even so, Arnoldo is petulant, meaning the trinkets and treasures are padlocked,
And I wish I could find something in his scowl, some againstness,
I am going to die, and his mood seems only that I have not told him.
All my time is gone for sulking Mediterraneans,
They should have loved me when they might,
This is the last, the last of dangerous fun, the last of politics,
The absolute last of empire. At Brindisi, Brundisium,
The Appian way is at a conclusion.
After which, to the south, only the arcana and shadow of Africa,
Across the seas shortly, by felucca or dhow,
I could become a good man and walk past Tunis,
Find deepest Uganda, where lanterns burn brighter,
To Zanzibar or the Congo and be a missionary to the best.
And rest again in a hut of wattle, browned perfect.
If the kirk and Sunday School harmonium is at full wheezing,
Common measure on the Gambia's banks.
Then what a friend we have in Jesus,
And I could be forgotten there;
To the extent that I am missionary with no message,
Obscure, of an unknown death.
No, not Africa, where I cannot be seen, but may live on a while,
The clever martyr embraces Death, and does no defying.
And so, at Brindisi, Brundisium,
The Via Appia is nascent,
From conclusion, later, to beginning,
And that is a magic of freedom,
I will march to Rome, set foot to the last road.
With the warm Adriatic on my right hand,
Past the white houses, gulls are working the breezes,
Grottos in the cliffs, the lemon and the oregano,
The red terrain, Puglia, Neapolis,
Look at the beauty of the scene,
Let your desires be ruled by reason - appetitus rationi pareat,
As if Cicero? But Cicero was sneaking away in a litter,
And Cicero was vain and flimsy, gouty and infirm.
Others may drift at sea, but I march with a purpose.
Past a bronze Eraclio, the strongest man,
The strong man who is nothing against a State,
I did my baptism and have never forgot it, unlike the most,
As soon as marked down, condemned to carry it everywhere,
The guilt has no place, no country tied to,
It has no berth or harbour.
Take noon meals from farmsteads, beg bread unleavened
And a handful of olives, the physical worn out, the body shattered,
But the spiritual is eager to continue the fight.
At Barium, Bari, find in the sheets of a bed, white comfort,
Rise and find the Castello Svevo, the ugliest thing that could ever be made,
Look at it with outrage and be a soldier
With hobnail boots, puttees, even a Black and Tan,
Skilled at arms and sent to fire, fire and lay waste,
And march on, soldier.
At Ordona, by the side of green mountains,
I watch the power of these beasts who roar at God's heaven,
The straightest path.
At Capua, Etruscan brought under Roman rule,
Luxurious, these togas and larks tongues, take to the luxury and wine,
Capua, which was not going to accept a revolution,
Those who loved the state as it was.
Men dying in the evening, on crosses, each of those trees
Held a young man, a slim young Hercules,
Blue twilight and the whole earth is inconsolable,
But Spartacus will not be forever unavenged,
Seventy-two before the Christ of Sunday schools, and tune: Crimond,
In the grip of iron, leather and brass,
Ten thousand fighters, naked, crucified and not a one cried out.
At last to evil Rome, city of stones, of declarations, of majesty,
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you,
For I was caused to march,
But I was weak and sometimes refused the duty
I worried I was Petros, who fought to the limits of my poor ability,
But prone to deny: Quo vadis, domine?
Eo Romam iterum crucifigi,
I go to Rome to be crucified again.
And find that I am Christus, who affirmed,
And I will walk until every man is a Jesus, forever until.
In Rome, at the last, I find myself,
I have compassion above the arrogance of missionary,
I marched without flag or banner, and saw in my suffering my righteousness.
Say, was not this thy Passion to foreknow
In death's worst hour the works of Christian men?
2. Mr Swinburne
Except that some are still convinced Mrs Patrick Campbell was the siren engaged, and therefore authoress of the event, this curious snippet begins with the weather, one whole day after the sun had set behind its ministering mountains, and the deaths-head moth was joyously out and on its wing. It was Swinburne, pale quivering Algernon, who had come into the mischievous sights of the fading Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, suffering the throes of kidney disease and ready to depart, but not quite ready yet to end his sport against the world.
So it was, that with the sun setting behind the aforementioned mountains, and the convivial soirée already into its second hour and proceeding capitally,
That a sound was heard, a thud, on the double doors,
A second thud resolved it to a knocking for entry,
And a third ringing reverberation could well have been the infernal Commendatore.
The signal for all others to skedaddle as a giggling bunch out of the further exit, Mr Swinburne, whose house this was, our fine host, had first thoughts to stand and face whatever unknown menace might be involved, noticed that every else was fleeing, people larger than he, thought to join them, but was held back by the burly Millais and Waterhouse. Until all else had exited, then thrust forward to the floor as gently as they could manage it, after which they too fled. The soirée was over.
Again the rat-a-thud - and in a burst of theatric smoke and flame entered a savage goddess, clad in leopard pelts and bearing a staff which might have had a shrunken head on. Arms akimbo, there in front of him.
Poor fastidious Mr Swinburne quailed his greatest quail.
We know of Mr Swinburne, he arrived by God's hot air balloon, refined from the chariot that took Elijah, arrived back on this earth delicately set down, with God's fingers having dabbled on him a fixed message. At this time, he would be held to be the premier wordsmith of damp ladies with curses, pursued by gleaming knights wont to take on infeasible challenges.
For it was, no doubting it, the wayward Rossetti who had paid an actress, a lady of fearsome proclivity and reputation, best remaining nameless, but assuredly not Mrs Patrick Campbell, to cause some small mayhem.
—Simple, do a dance in front of him.
The blackguard Rossetti offered her money, fine gold from South African mines, and she needed money - she was good at spending it. And so Swinburne was to be unexalted by contact with a woman, a real woman. It would locate in him his inner male.
—This incorruptible Paraclete, we shall see now how strong he truly is, said Rossetti, as he watched the llama chew his wallpaper.
A thunder machine having been obtained from the Haymarket, this now went into operation, step on step, Behind each of these curtains burned a powerful light, and these were the sources of the glow that filled the hall. A peculiar delicious odour pervaded the place.
Cybele will savage us,
—I have you written in my dance card, she says. Now is the time.
(At the session beforehand, this was held to be the most amusing of repartee and as such was given to the goddess as her first line).
—Mr Swinburne, you shall dance as you have never danced before.
(Or you shall have a knighthood for your forbearance).
At which she began her own dance, of the seven veils, which in truth were more silk scarf. It was something out of the eastern harem all right, the thunder rose, the timbrels and pipes and harps were upon him.
Some of him lived but the most of him died, a fair statement, when first assaulted by that savage female.
An actress confident of her abilities, The Fearsome Female is the new civic, no rules here, every man for himself.
So that he would stiffen his resolve, whether he fancied or not, and enter the bone-strewn den of the New Woman. Except he did not.
His lips seemed to murmur, the cheekbones would float in their movements,
She realised he was reciting a poetry.
The Cross, the Cross is tainted! O most just,
Be merciful, and save me from this snare.
The frenzied efforts of the actress increased, she flailed her flails, she shot her silks. She knew she would be handing back a large percentage to Mr Rossetti, for such had been their agreement.
And with a pounce, she landed square on him.
Now straddled by thighs - these are the devil's pincers - he wonders whether still clad in stockings, the neck can strain to see,
She-who-must-be-obeyed, and still Quartermain resisted,
Limbs pendent, in libidinous mockery.
The untumescent Swinburne, this pint-pot shrimp, flapped in the billows, but refused to capitulate. And she slowed, realised that it was not happening for him or her...
In that moment, Mr. Swinburne found his majesty,
—Sorry, my dear, but I simply won't. I won't play the horse to your Lady Godiva.
I imagine Rossetti had more money than he knew what to spend it on, and, holed as he was in Chelsea, the wilds of Chelsea, with llama and parrot, it had permanently affected the balance of his mind. It was definitely Rossetti upon whom the skit had backfired. He came away crest-fallen and over the next weeks, he realised the difficulty in his position, a Peeping Tom. In the last days of his life, society would have to know him differently and truthfully, as a brute.
Which was not helped by Mr Swinburne reporting, at some length, his conduct as a triumph - and the lyres of society had the story on their strings, gleefully, lastingly.
In his previous dealings, Mr Swinburne often had cause to wonder what the faint screaming he heard, or rather, sensed, whenever Mr Rossetti was in attendance, right on the limit of cognition, but apparently present as a true phenomenon. Others heard them, Millais, Burne-Jones, but similarly could not say what was the source. With Rossetti, the shrieks you could hear in his presence were those of his sister, understanding, divining, meeting.
3. Wormwood: A Drama of Paris
From this period I may begin to date my rapid downward career:
"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and gall," says the prophet Jeremiah in his Lamentations, but this Wormwood refers to the text from the Revelation of St John: "And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." The quotation is given directly on the title page, and we open the book to meet French absinthe and those Bohemians weak or immoral enough to adopt it into their doomed lives - as they are said to do to such an extent that they become completely named as absintheurs.
If M. Zola is bringing light to the darkness, this work drags every sort of evil up from its noisome depths for inspection and condemnation. And - it is not incidental - we are given an equal warning against Naturalism or Realism in literature. Miss Corelli sides with those who would berate the late Mr Darwin for his failure in not tracing the likely descent of Man again and drawing the necessary moral conclusions.
Have not the works of Zola been recently described as 'dangerous to the average mind'? For the opponents of his Realism, the view is that its new freedom to treat is likely to end in the same moral decay it seeks to depict.
We would only make one remark here:- the three volumes of the book are presented in refined pale green covers with coiling vipers and crossed red ribbons over their spines - purposely to have imitated the appearance of the drink's bottle, down to its very label and stopper, does seem perverse to the moral.
As to the literary matter, two handsome and well-bred people are bound for a good marriage - but one falls in love elsewhere, and asks to be released from their engagement. No sooner, the third party decides that he is actually for the priesthood. We might have thought this likely, he is the nephew of a priest and has given some notice of his intentions already. Instead putting it down to a foible, feminine or masculine, and the situation not lost, the main character feels himself utterly wronged to an irredeemable extent. He is not a naif, nor does he even enjoy his first encounters with the evil drink, but he presses on resolutely towards his chosen destruction.
Public rejection follows, a degradation of his own moral character, leading him humiliate and disdain his first love at the altar of their rearranged marriage. And after that, the torrent:- artists in the grip of hallucinations, desperate heroines fallen to rivers, morgues, tombs, murders, suicides, a brutish feral child with an unspeakable diet, poets beating on tombs to be let in, no shrieking female, and a Count, a whole Count, dying of a broken heart. Every possible aspect of the iniquitous life Miss Corelli can summon from her imagination, and without respite.
Why then his downward career? In her eight hundred pages and three volumes, Miss Corelli does not provide any explanation of the forces that drive. The main character has the unhappiness of a broken engagement, in which he is certainly the injured party, but in return manages to behave ungratefully and gracelessly many times over. Others have suffered on similar lines, but have not taken the absintheur's path. Here, it seems, an addict must be either unmistakably insane, or uncontrollably Parisian, or, in our hero's case, subject to a moment's inattention, pur et simple:
If I had remained the same Gaston Beauvais that I once had been, - if on the night Pauline had made her wild confession of shame to me, I had listened to the voice of mercy in my heart – if I had never met Andre Gessonex…imagine! – so much hangs on an ‘if’!
It is, I venture, not enough to rely on the doctrine of Original Sin - we need a more scientific reason. The classical world has the valiant attempts of Oedipus, in full knowledge of the prophecy, yet prepared to fight to his last against its curse. Job, too, was punished, by the inscrutable lot of Satan and God but finally bore his ills with fortitude. Our hero? He is a writer, but of slight commitment - he still has his banking career, which he has not thrown over in favour of his art. He is empty of idealistic aspirations, even at the first, and so is easy prey to temptation.
As a minor, but a perhaps more accurate character, we have the artist Gessonex. He is the tempter who introduces Beauvais to absinthe, and he is the tortured artist to be sure. Farther back in his history, his temperament has been formed, and this temperament has in its turn inevitably created both the artist and the absintheur. When Gessonex shows Gaston his masterpiece - a painting of a despairing priest breaking open a beautiful woman's coffin - morality, suffering and death are neatly bound up, and could have been more easily treated in this character - possibly in less than three volumes.
When Gessonex is gone, he receives a bitter epitaph:-
He was only a genius, and as such was no earthly use to anybody
But, long before then, he has spoken of the absinthe he knows as his ruin,
It is like vengeance, - bitter at first, but sweet at last!
I should think the subject of Mr Dowson's poem To One in Bedlam is a artist. Here, caged and stared at by a dull world, the bedlamite demonstrates a higher condition:-
O, how his rapt gaze wars
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to the stars
His melancholy is germane - perhaps his madness as well.
I am finished with the adverse - let me now redress the balance of this criticism. I very much enjoyed the speculative and wild fantasies of this work. Flights of the imagination are so extremely rare in the nineteenth century that they seem to me deserving rather of praise than of censure. Also there are some notably excellent isolated descriptions:- of female beauty, of the wonders of metropolitan Paris. The hallucinations are revealing, Beauvais sees a ship being built and launched upon a green sea, only to break up and give way to a skeleton. Later, he comes across a green-eyed leopard phantom on a Parisian bridge, while droves of weary workman plod through it. If we are forced to accept that we can be discovered through our dreams, at least there is little or none of the spiritualist tendency that is also so prevalent.
Is Miss Corelli rich or too rich in her prose and its philosophical sallies? To criticise her work for its fervid tone is like criticising a naturalistic writer for being too blunt, and I shall not join the snobbery of other reviewers, for that is what it is. Almost, their objections reduce to those of a manual of etiquette. The popular style may be shut into its limitations, and Miss Corelli does not possess literary weapons of great force, but melodrama, or something very like it, is not absent from the knightly Italian tales and, I would venture to say, not entirely absent from Homer. The authoress is writing to her constituency, and we should not come between – especially when she will point to that same grand constituency, spread far and wide, and the reverence in which they hold her opinions. This is a novel with a mission - which does not recommend it - nevertheless, I take a guilty pleasure in doing so.
Wormwood: A Drama of Paris. By Marie Corelli. (Richard Bentley & Son.)
4. Lucien the Poet
—I tell you, it was in his scheme that poor Lucien should die. As a demonstration to the world.
—I'm not sure you should suggest that...
—But he has always had a campaign, a mission to attack society. It has led to him gaoled, then Lucien was his faithful soldier in the last years, and now this - all to add to his own martyrdom.
—I think you go too far, Reginald...
—It was in his scheme, damn it all!
I listened as the pair argued. I was not prepared for the strong language used at the scene of death.
That afternoon, I had received a written message from the countess asking if I would please attend, as there had been a misfortune. To an Englishman, and they could not obtain a local doctor until the next day. It was already towards three, and I had been in Naples that morning, sending telegrams in preparation for my wedding. But, out of respect for the countess, to decline would have been out of the question. The estate labourer who had been bearer of the message drove me in a cart, out towards the coast.
—What is the matter? I tried to ask him, as we went.
He indicated he did not understand, but I tried again in such Italian as I owned.
—Un suicidio, he replied, in a blunt shyness.
We drove on, every so often a fork would appear, another track taken, my driver knowing very well the snaking paths and the hidden ways. They were grown up on either side with bushes, gorse and dwarf mulberry, so I had been told, previously. Until, quite suddenly, we turned a bend and reached the cottage, I presume once a fisherman's cottage. The tang of ozone was in air, and the sounds of breakers very occasionally reached us, but the sea was not at all visible.
He was dead from hanging, although had been cut down and was on the one bed, covered by the single bedsheet. I should best spare other details, but when I examined him, he had been dead for some hours, rigor was setting in. In the night, they usually do the deed. The hours before dawn. A last criminal act, the coldest part of the night, when the spirits are lowest, I remember my professor saying.
I had not met the man, but I knew he was a young man, to be described as a poet. As perhaps the occupation taken by a young man who had no idea how to proceed in life.
These two friends were also present, they had been called from Naples immediately and had arrived shortly before me. They did introduce themselves, but I had not paid full attention at the time and can only recall them as Gerald and Reginald. A smartly dressed pair, fashionable and definitely in society. Both, I thought, were somewhat unfriendly and while grief affects us all, they neglected most of the courtesies that might be expected towards a fellow Englishman abroad.
I had been asked to attend as a physician, but I told them I was sure I could not sign any local certificates, the law of the region precluded it. I also told them that protocols would be observed the next day and that one of the labourers, or if, necessary myself, could remain at the cottage to watch the deceased.
Had they wished to speed the processes, they should have obtained a coffin in Naples, and brought a doctor with them. I suspect they were of the cast of mind that thought all such matters would be taken care of for them by someone else. They were rather silly.
After that, Gerald pushed some Italian coins at me, when I had given no indication of asking a fee, which fact I must say I did resent.
These two spent some time clearing and collecting into bundles the poet's papers. Perhaps there were sonnets or odes or correspondence there that needed to be kept for posterity, or be burned instantly - I know little of artists and their lives, but that they are sometimes scandalous. I knew also that there is rarely a middle ground when it comes to the mortal sin of suicide.
The complication was a cat, an ordinary tabby, pretty in the ways of cats, who scratched at the wood of the doorposts and would be shushed out of the path. Our Gerald went to push it out, but it curled away and simply would not do as it was bidden. Vain and difficult, which creature is more intractable than a house cat?
—Careful, dear boy, you might catch a disease, said Reginald.
—Cats are not carriers of rabies, I offered, but they ignored my contribution.
After they had collected up all the papers, they sat outside with them. Also with the man's cheese, which they had found in the pantry and part of a loaf. They both bemoaned the lack of any wine - the only liquid they had was water they had brought themselves.
As I alluded, they were deep in a conversation about some associate of the dead man, some friendship or contact. Reginald, in particular, was adamant this man had caused, or made more likely, the sad event.
—They were a damned pair together, they were in it equally,
—But it is Lucien who has ended up dead.
I had already gleaned that the associate had been detained in prison, recently even - what crime and how? What crimes do poets commit, or it may have been this man was not a poet...
—He plotted every move, and this I tell you, is the culmination. He will know of it in time, how could he not, and I hope he has the good grace to be ashamed when he hears the news, for this has been taken too far. He was careless of Lucien's interests from the first.
—Here, is this not what you were looking for? interrupted Gerald, with a sudden exclamation.
They had found a letter, or a testament, or at any rate, something they thought they would find in this Lucien's effects.
... To destroy me, throwing me to the ground like a used-up cigar ...
... You have created a passion that rebounded to my vulnerability ...
... It will not be for you to discover my body, but your intrigues that has sent me to death ...
See here, they pointed out various passages to each other, here and here, a long letter and it will bear its readings, but they remembered themselves, where they were and instantly returned to their secrecy and disinclination to share anything with a causal meeting.
—We must go, said Gerald.
At their leaving, I was happy to stay on for a time, perhaps to calm my own thoughts. They had been, let me say, rather difficult characters. The action was over, and even with the poor boy laid out in the cottage behind, I could sit under the trees and take in something of the sunset. But with it so late in the day, I was quite surprised to hear the faint sounds of another cart approaching. Was it the pair returning with some forgotten duty, I wondered. However, when this cart came into view it had a single occupant.
An older man got down, so obviously clerical in his dress, black with some silver accoutrements on his shoes and bag. He nodded to me in a small greeting and went inside. He was inside only a short time and when he came out he looked little affected by the laying-out - priests and doctors see these things. At the table, he saw the remains of the bread and cheese, and myself - I felt distinctly embarrassed that he would think me someone less than reverent in the circumstances. Then he spoke to me in English - when I had quite thought that he was an Italian.
He asked why I was here, whether I had known the poet at all?
I explained the situation to him, how I had merely been asked to attend.
I was a little curious to know more and hoped I might enquire of him about his connections, if I could find some polite opening, but straightaway the tabby cat returned, straying around our legs, set on its own business to the distraction of all others. It simply would not do as it was told. He looked at it with distaste, and made to shoo it off, its shallow disregard seemed to peeve him out of all proportion.
Several times the cat wandered across, until he called on his driver to remove it forthwith - he really was quite discomforted by that tabby cat.
5. The Cadogan Hotel
The plan is afoot.
—The boat train, and then the ferry, will have you in Dieppe in seven hours.
The sea washes away the stains and tears of the world, and then there will be French goodwill to wash over you also. I'd fancy that in a week's time, you will have recovered your old self.
—I am clearly bankrupt now and am furious with Carson.
It was true in substance and in fact that the prosecutor had posed as a sodomite. The prosecutor has lost his action for libel, and expects to be arrested shortly. A mob will be at Bow Street, waiting. There's a man at the door, a reporter from the Star. There was hubbub, but inside, largely silence.
—I am receiving no one, is that clear?
—Robbie has spoken with Wyndham this last hour, he has now left for Chelsea - to collect what he can, the manuscripts you spoke of, but we should make our departure soon... if we are going to...
—Wyndham? He is Member of the Lords, is he not? Is he furious?
—Not so, by all accounts. Robbie and he spoke reasonably together and discussed some of the material matters.
At present, he looks as if he would flee, to no better hiding-place than behind the curtains, his boots peeping at the bottom.
—A reporter outside says that the warrant has already been issued.
—Then go back and tell him he is a liar,
Oscar so grey in the face, tipping down a brandy and soda, another:
—Do you think I will be bailed? he asks, plaintively.
Agitated, Reginald Turner keeps on at him,
The magistrate has a thrown us a lifeline, can't you see? They have not yet issued the warrant, We can be on the platform in an hour, we can be at Charing Cross, or Victoria, the matter is simple, you have your passport, we could just leave.
—It is cutting and running.
—But you must think about the alternatives, Oscar...
—I want to hear want Constance would have me do.
The porcelain wife, he wants to send her a telegram.
—Robbie will know of her views, when he returns from Tite Street.
—Flee, I will not flee! he exclaimed. They have been saying that to me since this morning - in the court room - that lawyer even offered to talk of nothing for an hour or two, to spin it out as a cover for me to vanish - there was no requirement for me to be in the room, I was not I in the dock - while I ran to Paris, pointless words, covering a cowardly bolt. I will not funk it.
It is not too late. Or, it is too late, except to act with some courage. He had very little will power to begin with and his mode of life had weakened his original endowment. That he had always succeeded by his cunning had made him devil-may-care, right up until it was too late to care.
—I would like to hear what my wife says.
—Ross will be returned soon. He will have spoken to her in Chelsea.
—Where is Robbie?
He said he was followed by a detective, when he went to consult in Tite Street. Jameson brought the message. He is now throwing him off the scent.
—What is the purpose? They have no interest in Robbie.
Who knows, there might be an utter pogrom coming tonight, we do live in those sorts of days.
—They may very well have. But he will be back soon.
—The blue and white will not be recovered, I thought the blue and white... how will I live without my blue and white?
—Robbie is prepared to accompany you.
Ross is white-lipped, neurasthenic almost, and beside himself, but he holds it in. He has stayed long after it might be considered safe for him to do so. He is rehearsing it first, quietly. Ross has a subject to broach, which he knows delicate, and not wanting to bring a scene, but time moving on, there might not be another opportunity. For fly, he substitutes go to France.
—I must tell you, Oscar, if you do not go to France, I will be considering it myself. And if there were a trial, I would not be able to support you in any practical way... I hope you will forgive me, said Ross.
—Of course I forgive you anything... But he tosses more drink down his throat and is looking unsteady. If tonight he is in the cells, this is not good.
—You have done more than enough already.
And adds more. —I hope in the general panic, it will not have escaped you that the French did not treat Verlaine well...? Ah, but prophet in his own country... It would be different, I'm sure.
—Oscar, your wife recommends that you go. Surely that is a casting vote,
He lies down and cannot decide, he looks for solace in yet another brandy and soda. His voice is shivered, like a willow pushed in winds.
—I shall stay and do my sentence whatever it is. Do you think I will be bailed?
—There will be a mob, greasy low evil fools. I am a stupid stupid man, you urged me not to proceed and I should not have. The lion of the hour, well yes I am, so much the lion of the hour.
What is he now to do with Carson, ridicule him in a witty play?
—I had completely forgotten Lady Wilde. I should speak to her.
She was a foolish snobbish woman, who had the full example of her husband to consider. And now the son had bought scandal again.
—Where is Shaw today?
Turner bites his lip.
—Shaw was among those who urged you to leave, Oscar - you have not taken his advice and I suppose he considers himself freed the obligation. Indeed, Douglas was utterly abusive to him and myself when we first suggested it. Where is Alfred Douglas now?
—I cannot say... I'm sorry, says Turner.
—Shaw is a poisonous snake to desert me. Where is Bosie?
Infuriation. That's the last thing you should be asking - he has entered a court case, lost, and not learned the lesson of losing.
—I should go...
—The train has gone. It's too late.
The glorious game, in which, a ring through the nose, he had led John Bull with a halter, was over. English society would beat him, the hobbledehoys, the prizefighters, the magistrates, the middle-classes in their terraces, the gentry, the rules. That part was explicable and their punishment, he could explain. His inaction, his refusal to save his own skin when the day was lost - even he could not explain.
Because glorious failure and subsequent martyrdom had formed the second part of his fantasy. At the peak of his success, he knows he must be brought down, how many classical figures have taken this destiny, and he had planned the going-down - it was that bravery and stupidity of his, intimately mixed.
Even now, I thought, the grey humiliation biting him, that would bring him to his senses, allow him to see the folly of the second act.
It's not too late, it's never too late.
—We could get him out of London in a four-wheeler and down to Hastings, or Newhaven, he could hide for a day or two. A romantic fisherman would take him to France incognito, the young pretender, on the briny smack the waves – and hove to, waiting for his time.
Even at the last moments, he almost made a run for it, a startled rabbit, suddenly leaping away from the chair, then stock-still again. He is carrying a yellow-bound French novel, he straightens up his clothes, pulling the creases straight, a touch to his tie.
—Do you think I will be bailed?
This time to the detective come to execute the warrant - who, being in his ease, in control of the situation, done it many times before, takes refuge in a polished evasion.
—That would be for the court to decide.
6. The James Gang
—His grave's not green with grass, an' they're a-sellin' off his goods,
—I imagine they would, if greenbacks are involved.
—He was shot down by one of his own fellers.
—I am sure he was.
How many roads lead to Jesus? In the most wilderness places here is the Lonesome Pine, the Tree, the Son of Man on that Tree, I suppose we should not be bewildered by that. Apparently the outlaw was a dreadful ruffian, and not above killing in cold blood himself - in the past war, several atrocities to his name - and yet it is possible to get the populace instantly to condemn the vigilante, holding loyalty far higher than the law of the land. He was betrayed, conspired against by worse men, they seem to be very clear on whose side the fault lies.
—So then, the traitor did the deed merely for the State Reward?
—He done that.
But it remains to be seen whether his act will profit the Judas - the bounty has not been paid yet.
A chromolithograph of the most hideous nature, as we watched from the back of the crowd, became as if a rare Mantegna, the place Kensington, with a hundred eager and rich worshippers. I cannot begin to think what its subject was - devotional, I assume. If they could strip his raiment, divide it... The corpse had been taken into town – photographed in death, as is also the fashion, for the sale of post cards, and a-hah! Swiss-cheese outlaw displayed as felicitous greetings from Liberty, Missouri.
Colonel Morse calls for a fresh pitcher – whisky is the death of too many good men – the goodness of malted barley, but no distillation, mind you – no siree – he in a plumpen waddle – and he's constantly outside for a gentleman's relief (No going outside with guns) – with his Manhattanist twang, you too play away from your good ol' land, Colonel – in prairies new – with your tangled eyebrows and scored face – old bugle calls – the reveille, the last bugle, the last trump – the couchette car, rattlin' on the rails – the redoubtable Miss Morse, New Continent representative of Amazonia – I think I would, although she is not graceful.
—Father, you should buy a sixgun, directly. You could have the use of it here, and think what it would be to show when we are home again.
—I've never had a six-shooter, Hester, you duck... We are from New York, good ol' Neuva Yorka, Neuva Amsterdama. The gangs always had their knives, and I always had my pistol.
How in hell are you made a Colonel then? All honor'y?
The lick o' slick knife at the connivin' moll's throat – then a root beer, sasparilla and sassafras,
Brains an' airstoocratik blood, which of the same you fellers sure hev little – there's an engagement occurred, we think - been spoken of - no sign o' the Beau - Madame de Soulanges suivit son séducteur – ah, the sweet couchement – qui pensait qu'elle lui appartiendrait plus sûrement s'il parvenait à l'afficher.
Hands-up, Miss Morse! You're coming along here with me and don' be a lazy Mexicano about it.
—Wassat? She looks up from the meal.
She is not a natural-born flirt.
The reporters lined up who will have aestheticism defined for them after a ten-hour journey of limited provisions – a mutually tired licking of pencil to say:
—So then, what they say is true, Mr. Wilde, you is an atheist...?
The train journeys where porters go about with lurching hot water, every moment ready to brew up a vile tea, for hornery atheists.
Au contraire, I do declare – this is the finest town in all of Minnesota – fine sons and finer by far than Yellowstone down the tracks – some water would be nice, thank you. The reporters are the nerve signals – peccati nostra, you know he held up a train and made them give over the deposit box, but all the firepower around the outlaw, which the guard thought were guns, was just sticks, propped up, just sticks of furze – when the outlaw had made his escape.
And his brown face was scarred and seamed as if he had fallen into the fire in infancy, they said.
Mizpah, Zorah, Gilead, St. Cloud, Fargo, Bismarck, this has been a partial success – partial, partial – partial to a bit of slap an' tickle, how dare Mr Wilde say partial to himself – his voice low, to travel under the ears of the wrong hearers, a voice like a stoat, not wanting to be found out.
Outlaws mebbe, but they were unarmed. Now those men behind desks they're killin without the law – a born citizen of Wyoming, same rights as you and me to a fair trial,
This country will make so many Jesuses, it is raw, and will be baked so rapidly.
So all is new and exciting. Men enact their new ways without fear of ridicule. The Wilde West will be a place of passions allowed, even up to the dictum of Voltaire. No country has been created by civilised men before, this is wonderful and daunting. Look around you at the methods – O, their fervour and exclamations – our manifest destiny is spread from coast to coast, and the red man will fall in with that, a mission to spread and a virtue to demonstrate.
If you do not look at your best, you will not be able to lecture people on dress...
She has a percipient point. You are right, of course – needle and thread in her travelling case – it would be nice.
There is the choice between the girl in every town – if necessary, it will be girls in houses.
He's fought the savages and will be offerin' that in his talk, his wild west show,
How I plugged a feller at poker – and how will Dress Reform compete with that?
Morse shouting at a owner of a hall: —Don't welsh me, don't you dare welsh me. Gets it done by force of personality - he doesn't carry a gun - don' need to, young feller.
Miss Morse uses rye bread to convey beans to her mouth,
Miss Morse goes barearmed in a public place,
Sassafrass for the considerable Miss Morse. She does not welcome the attentions of backwoodsmen, but a creature in plush, now that's another matter – hah, I do not think, at least, she will kill an unarmed man – shall 'Frisco show you a destiny? When we reach that city, I think we will know. I shall dig and find a considerable nugget, or perish in the attempt – I'll have a root around at 'Frisco.
Attends, and she is up to her father's room, directly the evening appears to be winding up, which is unfortunate, but we lounge with long cigars and continue discussions.
—I want to meet an Indian. (Tap up the tales of the red feller).
—They got themselves uppity during the war, didn't have the time to keep 'em in check,
His hair was the colour of bees' honey, and his body was as a white flower,
But they had wounded his body with thorns and on his hair had set ashes as a crown,
Solid as tall, with palest green knickerbockers – as near tall as Jimmy Whistler, who shall be forced to respect me entirely, one o' these fine days. Four times, no five times, in a succession of dark halls, drag it through for the shillings or cents, maybe the unaccompanied old woman was shuffled off – dead and pewdrooped not in prayer.
—Reckon she was a-prayin' for yer soul, younker.
Reckon she got no answer from the Lord – afterwards, I quite forgot to check, she wan't dead was she? I'd have heard if she had been.
—Easy as pie, young critter, people go an' die on you jus' like that.
Why, I do declare, God's anger is delayed – spiritual chyle to the heathen, baptism, of this land and its fruitfulness – all clad in leather ploughed with scars, the hides of animals pelts and furs – lamplight as much as in the streets of Holborn and Strand – and everywhere the sounds, the clump of wood, the boards, the noise, the jangles of harness and boots, the train goeth clackety-clack – to be a great country, they'll do something about this infernal racket.
Wordless, the poor pale outlaw staring up at heaven – what did you do to make new Jerusalem? With his disciples a rootin tootin their resurrections onwards, taking three officers of law over by Durango, rustling cattle, planning raids, when your work on this Earth is done.
Militia man – impresario of revues, burlesques, lecture tours – at his beer manfully, swig the finest wateriest – abstinence from spirituous liquor has made Colonel Morse stout to an extreme, a hog pork fat barrel - we whiskey types are slim to fit between sunbeams – hardened and lean – I shall preach the elegance of breeches, of pantaloons,
Drag it through for shillings or cents, but sing a song in the heart – seduce Miss Morse in 'Frisco, then home to foggy London, where it is serener – the words will reach the tongue, I'll crack her yet, my father had an eye for wenches saucy – Madame de Soulanges cédé à son séducteur – damn this rain as sewing-needles on the cheeks – unscalped arrive at fair Turkey Creek – words will reach, words will reach – here, prepare for another dreary recitation of needless words...
For now:- buffla' meat is on the carte of fare,
A plate of sustenance in front of me, rudely-prepared, magenta-grey in beans and sauce.
Miss Morse in the middle ground, a partial retort against,
Then the sage bush slopes, the golden aspens, a blue sky twixt crag and cloud,
And auriferous sands, they be there as well, somewhere yonder o'er the next white-peaked range...
7. Parisian Première
Lit up like a paradise, electric bulbs, each bud
The glowingest lily and from me, first contribution,
But on the opening night,
I am denied the throne caused to be left empty,
Please accept my apologies,
Please hang the yet-claimed crown there,
You cannot prevent me from the world.
But I know it, deep in my heart, I know it is enough.
The four voiceless walls are nothing in the face of my triumph,
This cell with damp and the prisoner ill and broken,
The taste is champagne and success,
Even here, try to remember something beastly - I cannot.
The taste attends my mouth and will never leave,
You cannot prevent me from the world.
So tell me, Saint, who are you, crouched in the corner?
You are St Jerome, shut into your penance,
Anchorite, with cross, skull and Bible for the only furniture of your cell,
What I dislike the most about you, Lord Chamberlain,
You are a dogmatist, and worst of all, in this, you are locked up,
You have brought us together in your awful cave.
But you cannot prevent me from the world.
Let me draw your attention to Edmund,
The modus mortis of Saint Edmund of green Suffolk,
When beheaded began his prayer. Not continued,
Even from the curtain of extremis behind,
Occult spectacular, continued,
He, too, spoke of the joys already felt.
You cannot prevent me from the world.
I might want a little prizefight in this cell, with nowhere else to go,
You would not cope well,
—Heavens and I enjoyed the great fight, Corbett and Fitzsimmons,
For a week all I could live for, in the comfort of my own drawing room,
Talking to the nemesis of Queensberry,
I do so love the sporting life, I shall enthusiastically throw myself into more -
You see, Lord Chamberlain, you bearded ape,
You have made a rugger bugger of me,
You cannot prevent me from the world.
Thou shalt not, you tell me various shalt nots. Let us begin with the first.
Thou shalt not portray Biblical characters on the stage.
—Is that your position? Well then, my Lord Chamberlain,
You have some wondrous extra commandments,
Thou shalt not portray embraces between males as practical demonstrations of love.
Thou shalt make no reference whatsoever to Mr. Walt Whitman.
Excepting dramas where the purpose is edifying instruction.
Allegiance per blunt legal instrument,
This taciturn Saint Jerome in his cell, C.3.3½
Shall we pass the time with charades, O saint?
Thou shalt not put on the play Mrs. Warren's Profession, not no how, no wise,
It is written in French, seriously a sin,
Sans aucun doute, for it is a sin when a Frenchman writes...
Preposterous!
Yes, preposterous. But your world, Mr. Lord Chamberlain, your world.
What is your saying, that we all had to write out in best longhand?
Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied.
So I have, from the first, been a flaneur, a lolling Oblomov.
From France over the sea I hear the applause, can you not too?
Mr Jerome? golden nymphs stand ready,
How many encores tonight for you, my Lord?
I have committed the sin many times repeating, how many encores for me?
The taste would be of blood - have I considered that? I have.
I shall receive my martyrdom, which is to live with you;
When I saw you, I knew that I must transgress against you,
You are the same cloth that has always assailed me.
I talk on, my head has been sliced from my shoulders,
But I talk on, Mr Lord Chamberlain,
I can languish in cell and porridge,
And you, sir, can rest in the hoar of your existence,
They shall flood to the late cafés, and they shall talk of me,
O Saint, they shall not talk of you.
Before Light is returned by Art and the Aesthetic,
I am the harlot who bought the Paraclete.
Il y avait une âcre saveur sur tes lèvres. Était-ce la saveur du sang?
Mais, peut-être est-ce la saveur de l'amour. On dit que l'amour a une âcre saveur,
Mais, qu’importe? Qu’importe?
There was an acrid taste on your lips – was it the taste of blood?
But perhaps it was the taste of love, they say love has a bitter flavour,
But who cares? Who cares?
I kissed your mouth, Prophet, I kissed your mouth.
8. Édition de luxe
In my Oxford days, I was inclined to indulge in the radical thought that money was not properly divided - on reaching a profession of sorts I realised how complicated was earning money. We are radical only yesterday.
He confessed he would never go in a hansom cab, nor would he enter a four-wheeler until the driver had first got on the box with his reins in his hands. He was a remarkable man to have dragged himself so far from good sense and yet be lauded on all sides as the finest philosopher in Europe.
In la Belle Époque we can look back at ignorance, and marvel how much ignorance has built the beautiful surrounding we enjoy today.
I sometimes wonder who the other Salome was. The Salome who appears in the gospel accompanying Mary and the Magdalene when they first visit the tomb. Appearing even once in the holiest book ever written is something to have done with a life.
The parrot is the only animal worth the house room.
Perplexity and mistrust fan affection into passion, and so bring about those beautiful tragedies that alone make life worth living.
Morality consists of accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a
form of the grossest immorality.
Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.
She looks like an 'édition de luxe' of a wicked French novel meant specially for the English market.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.
In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
'Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.
To be the greatest victim of Society is to be within it.
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist—that is all.
What is true about Art is true about Life.
It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is the proper judge of it.
To be published is usually to be considered sagacious.
A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent. Unlike Aeneas when he distracted and calmed the fearsome Cerberus during his passage through Hell, he has no poppied or honeyed cakes by which to force on the monster sleep or sustenance.
In the old days, nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbour. In fact, to be a bit better than one's neighbour was considered excessively vulgar. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues. And what is the result? You all go over like ninepins—one after the other.
He did not greatly love life, not the everyday mechanics of it, at least.
He had the regular fault of falling instantly in love with anyone whose ideas agreed with his own - caveat, his personality's force regularly brought his ideas from opposite him.
I do not think I am an author - I am an outlaw narrator.
A Nihilist Princess, what a curious notion. And she thought it magic and majestic to live a life undecoded. Others did not agree, sensing a monarchist trap.
The bad Popes loved Beauty every bit as much as the good.
It repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him.
Can there be anything so unnatural as a green carnation, a mockery of Nature's green? Although, that Nature believes it has an ownership of a colour is the ridiculousness of Nature. We see here a Queen prone to expansive demands, and notice here this as well, we must always reject much of Romanticism.
9. Managed by Earlier
Managed by earlier, "George Brummell" opines that a man who turns heads in the street is not a well-dressed man – sent, agoraphobic, to pennilessness in white Caen, all the doves he meets are his IOUs in their storm – down the coast to Biarritz, fleeing in a felucca, the consulate and the embassy offering the unexpected help,
– but you never got to holiday with Royalty - never established who was your fat friend – never got to press much flesh of Saxe-Coburg breeding. Jesters never prosper much.
"Byron" was not the first either - probably there's never a "first" - he may be the best of us all - he did not know them, the people, but was accustomed to being known, and was happy to receive their greetings all day.
His wielding of Love was imperious, never long before Beauty had its outing.
"Shelley" - another risky business. Less so.
The plan is to produce a novels of social comment on the lines of "Disraeli" and "Henry James",
"Disraeli" made himself from an unpromising beginning.
Nor the stuff of castles, "Le Fanu" has the Celtic fringes the bogeys and nixies, goblins and leprechauns,
"Abraham Stoker", I too have written of evil, I have written of the white evil you will find in withdrawing-rooms.
I am the one who deranged Jerusalem.
Barons in the redoubt, "Huysmans" and his and my juggling of danger, the envy of Shelley, Shaw, Scott...
Dosing himself up with chlorodyne, "Nerval" - this wild man has fired his arrows, the target is even now being built and will be struck in its bull - dead-eyed accurate.
People whom I have reacted against, those I respect - I never trouble myself to react against fools. "Ruskin", I disagree with, but I respect.
Who on earth are these "Wellesleys" and "Gladstones" of which people sometimes speak?
I do think it is possible to define oneself as to whether one is "Disraeli" or "Gladstone".
—If I am wrong, well, I die,
"Gautier" is probably the most offensive person under the sun, he has disastrous effect on fashion, in his smock and furs,
Paris has made a hole in France, the country is sucked to la vie Parisienne, "Offenbach" Lyon and Chartres stand on the brink, worrying, around the white hole Dieppe has made on the ocean blue, all around is the sense of postal orders, the carving away on ivory trinkets, remembrance of Nativity of Annunciation, no station left out,
An ivory back offered to the lash, scourged for the agreement of it. Scourged or otherwisely worn out. "Balzac" — but you are not a baron, you are the Comte de Lautréamont and I claim my fifty francs.
To illustrate something very obscure, arriving with a lantern, and called in a very arbitrary manner a thief, Raffles the hotel thief, caught up in the window and there was the foppish and sweet Baron who welcomed him to the sheets,
—What would you have me steal?
—My good name, since I have no use for it,
—Cleverer than that... he was affronted, demanding,
—Well then, a few diamonds, if you must,
The thief put down his lantern, a creaked stair and he was gone,
a bottle of wine and a cigar-box with which liberties had been taken,
I always thought myself as "Raffles". He is the character.
And but for a rather black towel in the lavatory,
A burnt match here and there, and finger-marks on the dusty banisters,
Not a trace of his visit he did leave.
As to the future:-
Blanco de 105 kilos, "Cravan" takes a thump from Johnson, pedals around the ring and hopes for the best.
"Julien Torma" an excellent writer who never wrote a word, how without me, I ask?
"Marcel Duchamp", a grand pupil.
The chevalier "Dali" was made to want a home in the shape of a telephone, a surrealist masterpiece, when so many houses are boring white. The telephone is the waster of time, I am the great waster of time. And his ocelot on a leash, how droll – I made him.
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