CLAPHAM JUNCTION

My lot has been one of public infamy, of long imprisonment, of misery, of ruin, of disgrace, but I am not worthy of it—not yet, at any rate.  I remember that I used to say that I thought I could bear a real tragedy if it came to me with purple pall and a mask of noble sorrow, but that the dreadful thing about modernity was that it put tragedy into the raiment of comedy, so that the great realities seemed commonplace or grotesque or lacking in style.  It is quite true about modernity.  It has probably always been true about actual life.  It is said that all martyrdoms seemed mean to the looker on.  The nineteenth century is no exception to the rule.

Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in style; our very dress makes us grotesque.  We are the zanies of sorrow.  We are clowns whose hearts are broken.  We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour.  On November 13th, 1895, I was brought down here from London.  From two o’clock till half-past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress, and handcuffed, for the world to look at.  I had been taken out of the hospital ward without a moment’s notice being given to me.  Of all possible objects I was the most grotesque.  When people saw me they laughed.  Each train as it came up swelled the audience.  Nothing could exceed their amusement.  That was, of course, before they knew who I was.  As soon as they had been informed they laughed still more.  For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob.—De Profundis.

THE BROKEN RESOLUTION

We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing.  We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and that the Earth is mother to us all.  As a consequence our art is of the moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and deals directly with things.  I feel sure that in elemental forces there is purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence.

Of course to one so modern as I am, ‘Enfant de mon siècle,’ merely to look at the world will be always lovely.  I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me.  Linnæus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of some rose.  It has always been so with me from my boyhood.  There is not a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my nature does not answer.  Like Gautier, I have always been one of those ‘pour qui le monde visible existe.’

Still, I am conscious now that behind all this beauty, satisfying though it may be, there is some spirit hidden of which the painted forms and shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with this spirit that I desire to become in harmony.  I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of men and things.  The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for.  It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.

All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death; and three times have I been tried.  The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years.  Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed.  She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.—De Profundis.

DOMESTICITY AT BERNEVAL

DIEPPE,

June 1st, 1897.

My Dear Robbie,—I propose to live at Berneval.  I will not live in Paris, nor in Algiers, nor in Southern Italy.  Surely a house for a year, if I choose to continue there, at £32 is absurdly cheap.  I could not live cheaper at a hotel.  You are penny foolish, and pound foolish—a dreadful state for my financier to be in.  I told M. Bonnet that my bankers were MM. Ross et Cie, banquiers célèbres de Londres—and now you suddenly show me that you have no place among the great financial people, and are afraid of any investment over £31, 10s.  It is merely the extra ten shillings that baffles you.  As regards people living on me, and the extra bedrooms: dear boy, there is no one who would stay with me but you, and you will pay your own bill at the hotel for meals; and as for your room, the charge will be nominally 2 francs 50 centimes a night, but there will be lots of extras such as bougie, bain and hot water, and all cigarettes smoked in the bedrooms are charged extra.  And if any one does not take the extras, of course he is charged more:—

Bain, 25 C.

Pas de bain, 50 C.

Cigarette dans la chambre à coucher, 10 C. pour chaque cigarette.

Pas de cigarette dans la chambre à coucher, 20 C. pour chaque cigarette.

This is the system at all good hotels.  If Reggie comes, of course he will pay a little more: I cannot forget that he gave me a dressing-case.  Sphinxes pay a hundred per cent more than any one else—they always did in Ancient Egypt.

But seriously, Robbie, if people stayed with me, of course they would pay their pension at the hotel.  They would have to: except architects.  A modern architect, like modern architecture, doesn’t pay.  But then I know only one architect and you are hiding him somewhere from me.  I believe that he is as extinct as the dado, of which now only fossil remains are found, chiefly in the vicinity of Brompton, where they are sometimes discovered by workmen excavating.  They are usually embedded in the old Lincrusta Walton strata, and are rare consequently.

I visited M. le Curé {4} to-day.  He has a charming house and a jardin potager.  He showed me over the church.  To-morrow I sit in the choir by his special invitation.  He showed me all his vestments.  To-morrow he really will be charming in red.  He knows I am a heretic, and believes Pusey is still alive.  He says that God will convert England on account of England’s kindness to les prêtres exilés at the time of the Revolution.  It is to be the reward of that sea-lashed island.

Stained glass windows are wanted in the church; he has only six; fourteen more are needed.  He gets them at 300 francs—£12—a window in Paris.  I was nearly offering half a dozen, but remembered you, and so only gave him something pour les pauvres.  You had a narrow escape, Robbie.  You should be thankful.

I hope the £40 is on its way, and that the £60 will follow.  I am going to hire a boat.  It will save walking and so be an economy in the end.  Dear Robbie, I must start well.  If the life of St. Francis of Assissi awaits me I shall not be angry.  Worse things might happen.

Yours,

OSCAR.

—Letter to Robert Ross.