REVELATIONS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1728, 19 April 1913, Page 5

REVELATIONS.

CONCERNING OSCAR WILDE. LIBEL ACTION BY LORD ARTHUR DOUGLAS AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER. Hy Telegraph- I'rcsH Association—Copyright London, April 17. Lord Alfred DnugUis has brought an iii-lion for libel agnin-f Dr. Arthur I'anwmio and "Thi! Times" Book Club in connection wilh Dr. .KnnsomeV book on Oscar Wilde, alleging (hat. Lord Douglas was responsible, for Wildo's ■, public disgrace and abandonment to poverty. Lord Douglas testified that ho had paid llireo months' rent for a villa at Naples for Wilde, and had given him largo monetary help at various periods. Ho had paid Wilde's funeral expenses. Tho evidence contained astounding revelations regarding tho career of Wilde and Lord Douglas. ' LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS'S EVIDENCE. A LETTER FROM "DE I'ItOFUNDIS." ' (Rec. April 18, 10.10 p.m.) London, April 18. Dr. Ransome's book suggested that after his imprisonment, Oscar Wilde's wife provided him with .£l5O per annum to enable him to start a fresh life under the name of "Sebastian Melmoth." Lord Alfred Douglas, however, took Oscar Wildo to Naples, where ho shared with him a lifo of momentary magnificence. Lord" Alfred Douglas was subjected to n searching cross-examination, particularly with reference to tho articles published in "Truth" in 1895 and many of his own poems. During the cross-examination, the defence produced unpublished sections of "Do Profundis," of which tho manuscript is in the British Museum. These included a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, written during Wildo's imprisonment, the reading of which occupied an hour and a half. It was remarkable for literary stylo, and the reflection which dominated Wildo's moods after his downfall. Wilde, in the letter, bitterly accused Lord Alfred Douglas of l>cing the causo of his ruin, the consequences of which had made play-writing and other intelI lectual work impossible. I ' EXTRACTS FROM "DE PROFUNDIS." In giving instructions la Robert Ross for tho publication of "Do Profundi's," the last work in prose Oscar Wildo ever wrote, and written whilo in prison, he said:—"l defend my conduct. ... I want you and others who still stand by mc and have alYcclion for me to know exactly in what mood and manner I hope to face the'world. Of course, from oiio point of view, I know that on the day of my release I shall be merely passing from one prison into another. . . . Still. I believe that at the beginning God made a world for each separate man, and in that world, which is within us, one should seek to live." Referring to the death of his mother, which occurred while ho was in prison, Wildo wrote:—"She and my father had bequeathed me a name they had niado noblo and honoured, not merely in literature, art, archaeology, and science, but in tho public history of my own country, in its evolution ns a nation. I had disgraced that name eternally. I had made it a low byword among low people. I had dragged it through the very mire. I had given it to brutes that they might make it brutal, and to- fools that they might turn- it into synonym for folly . . ." "When I was brought down from my prison to tho Court of Bankruptcy, between two policemen,—-waited in tho long dreary corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and simple hushed, into silence, ho might errav-ely raise his hat to me, as, handcuffed and with bowed head, 1 pissed him by. Men havo gone to heaven for smaller things than that. . . ." "When'l go out of prison, R 'will be waiting for me on tho other side of tho big i'ronstudded gate, and he is the svmbol, not merely of his own affection, but of the affection of many others besides. I believe 1 am to havo enough to live on for about eighteen months at any rate, so that if I may not write taautifnl .books, I may at least read beautiful books; and what joy can be greater?" "Tho fact of my having boon the common prisoner of a common gaol I must frankly accept, and, curious ns it may seem, one of tho things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, olio might just as well never have been punished- at all. Of course there aro many things of which 1 was convicted that I had not done, but then.there aro many things of which I was convicted that I had dono. and a still greater number of things in my lifo for which I was never indicted at nil. . . ." "A great -friend of mine—a friend of ten years' standing—came to see me some time ago, and told me that ho did not believe a single word of what was said against me, and wished mo to know that ho considered mo quito innocent, and tho victim of a hideous plot. I burst into tears at what ho said, and told him that while tlrcro was much, amongst tho definite charges that was quite untruo and-trans-ferred to mo by revolting malice, still that my lifo had been full of perverse pleasures, and that unless ho accepted that as n .fact about me and realised it to_ the full I could not possibly bo friends with him any more, or ever be in his company. It was a terrible shock to him, but we are friends, and I havo not got his friendship on false pretences." "Do Profundis" conoludes thus:— "All trials aro trials for one's life, just as all sentences aro sentences'of death; and three times havo I 'icon tried. Tho first time I left the bos to bo arrested, tho second limo to bo led back to tho house of detention, tho third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society, as wo havo constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whoso sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, wilt havo clefts in (ho rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose tilenco I mo.y weep undisturbed.