The story of Oscar Wilde (On the delusions of love)
*All excerpts from Oscar Wilde's letters are italicized in purple throughout this post.*
The first night I fell down the Oscar Wilde rabbit hole, I couldn't sleep afterwards. His story didn't seem to make sense to me. Not because the story lacked clarity or was missing key elements for my comprehension. Quite the contrary. It didn't make sense because such an avoidable calamity should not have befallen a man so brilliant, a mind so phenomenal, a being so talented.
Yet, here he is, an epitome of the fall from glory.
I stayed up all night rummaging through documents that might provide me with other reasons how this could have happened. But I found nothing different. I'll provide the summary of his story for those who might not really know.
In 1895, while at the height of his fame, Oscar Wilde, who was in an illicit but conspicuous relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, had received a calling card from the latter's father, the Marquess of Queensbury, which read "For Oscar Wilde, posing sodomite". Against the counsel of a number of his close friends, and on the advice of his lover, who had a very terrible relationship with his father, Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess for criminal libel, which carried a penalty of two years imprisonment, and for which the defence was to prove that the libellous statement was true, and that there were legitimate reasons for making them.
This is what gave rise to my disbelief. Oscar Wilde was in fact and in deed gay. Although he was married, he did not just have this one homosexual relationship with his lover, he had had multiple same-sex partners, and had patronized sex workers of the same-sex. Whoever was determined to find this information, was surely going to find it. And the other condition of having legitimate reasons would not have been hard to fulfil, seeing as homosexuality was a crime in England at the time, under the charge of "gross indecency".
As the trial was ongoing, Oscar Wilde realized there was no way he could win, and so dropped the charges against the Marquess. However, since ample evidence had come to light as a result of the trial, the Crown had no other choice but to prosecute him for gross indecency. Before the start of the second trial, he was advised to run away to a neighbouring country, but he once again, refused to take heed. At the end of the day, he was found guilty, and sentenced to two years in prison, with hard labour. He lost everything- His home, his wife and kids (who changed their last names to avoid further disgrace and humiliation), his wealth (he went bankrupt as a result of all the legal fees incurred: his and the Marquess', for whom he was forced to pay, since he brought the first charges against him). Sadly, he died three years after his release from prison, in a state of wretchedness. The cause of his death was meningitis, which was suspected to have been caused by an infection in his ear, due to an injury he had sustained while in prison.
I was disturbed; I was confused. The odds had not been in his favour. Nobody would have called this a calculated risk. This was self-destruction. Why would he do this? How could he do this?
Why would he stay even after the first trial? I had a plethora of questions.
That night, I read an article (which may be a little biased) from Middle templer (the legal society whose members were part of the Judges who presided over the trials), which had summarised his downfall as being a result of hubris. They had written:
“He sought to put himself above the Law by lying on oath in the face of overwhelming evidence. Perhaps he thought he could outwit the lawyers and mesmerise the juries”
It seemed to make a little sense, but not all the sense. Pride goes before a fall, yes. But he should not have fallen by reason of a ladder, which he should have known better than to climb, in the first place.
Yet here we are, history coloured by his devastating demise, by his mournful misfortune.
I was deeply disconcerted. I stayed up all night pondering hard at this, that I got scared to fall asleep, or to look in my mirror. So profound were my musings that I thought he might have to take it upon himself to come from the dead, just to explain to me how he could have made such a fatal error, to let me in on his thought processes throughout all the decisions he had made.
In all my thinking, I never seemed to consider that, though an indisputably intelligent man, amongst every other thing, Oscar Wilde was also under the influence of a very powerful substance: Love.
It was this love that made him eager to protect the man he loved from his father, against all common sense, against logic comprehensible even to the simplest minds.
It would have been impossible for me to have proved my case without putting Lord Alfred Douglas in the witness-box against his father…
Rather than put him in so painful a position I determined to retire from the case, and to bear on my own shoulders whatever ignominy and shame might result from my prosecuting Lord Queensberry
I am so happy that you have gone away!...It would have been agony for me to think that you were in England when your name was mentioned in court.
I decided that it was nobler and more beautiful to stay…
those of my friends who really desired my welfare implored me to retire abroad, and not to face an impossible trial…You forced me to stay to brazen it out, if possible, in the box by absurd and silly perjuries
A Martyr of love. Another fallen soldier.
He had written to his lover in May 1895, saying:
If prison and dishonour be my destiny, think that my love for you and this idea, this still more divine belief, that you love me in return will sustain me in my unhappiness and will make me capable, I hope, of bearing my grief most patiently
your love comes to me through my prison bars and comforts me, your love is the light of all my hours
He had fallen prey to love's deceitful strategy.
Love makes us believe that it is enough to carry us through any condition and through all situations.
Even covered with mud I shall praise you, from the deepest abysses I shall cry to you. In my solitude you will be with me. I am determined not to revolt but to accept every outrage through devotion to love
…but be not saddened by that, rather be happy to have filled with an immortal love the soul of a man who now weeps in hell, and yet carries heaven in his heart
It creates the illusion that it is immutable even as the unstable hands of time reimagine us: that it is unshakeable even when we are thrust into the windy wrath of circumstances.
I think of you much more than of myself, and if, sometimes, the thought of horrible and infamous suffering comes to torture me, the simple thought of you is enough to strengthen me and heal my wounds…
Pain, if it comes, cannot last for ever; surely one day you and I will meet again, and though my face be a mask of grief and my body worn out by solitude, you and you alone will recognise the soul which is more beautiful for having met yours, the soul of the artist who found his ideal in you, of the lover of beauty to whom you appeared as a being flawless and perfect.
We see those before us who have failed, and still, we think it might be different for us. 'Till death do us part', and yet, so few have lived such a tale. 'In sickness, and in health; in poor and in riches', regardless of all the real human stories, and the data that tell us otherwise.
Every great love has its tragedy, and now ours has too, but to have known and loved you with such profound devotion, to have had you for a part of my life, the only part I now consider beautiful, is enough for me
When love and reality go into battle, reality always seems to return, with pain as its trophy of war; its songs of triumph, the unsolicited memories that it hums in mockery.
I, much like Oscar Wilde, have written many a letter to my lovers (though mostly in the form of emails).
To one of them I wrote:
"I am so secure in it, that I am certain that even if this our love ends, we'll always be friends…I’m so happy. You make me so happy…I hope it never ends..."
"Thank you for being you, and for being mine. My person."
And to the same person, I wrote at the end of it:
"It is foolishness to love like this. It is a reduction of one's full self. I'll never understand why I did it..."
"I don’t know what I must have done to have been cursed with loving you so deeply, regardless of how you are. But I believe I have paid my penance. Hopefully, I am soon free."
"until I heal completely, I'll continue to consider it an indictment of myself, to have chosen you…"
We are "lucky" to have gotten an insight into the thoughts of Oscar Wilde, while he lived through awful and inhumane conditions. He was just like any man- breakable, while subjected to conditions which were created to do nothing more than crush the human spirit. We see the evolution of the aroma of his love. The sweet-smelling scent of love turned putrid.
A year later, in May 1896, Oscar Wilde wrote:
I wish to be certain that he has in his possession nothing that I ever gave him…The idea that he is wearing or in possession of anything I gave him is peculiarly repugnant to me. I cannot of course get rid of the revolting memories of the two years I was unlucky enough to have him with me…He has ruined my life – that should content him...
In November 1896, he wrote:
I feel more poignant abasement of shame for my friendship with Alfred Douglas…[it] is to me a daily source of mental humiliation...
Face to face with the actualities of life, love's mask of bravado tends to fall; its fallacious fortitudes often falter. It avails itself of the chaos of existence, and slips away wearing the disguise of its choosing: detachment, dislike, disdain, disgust.
In Deprofundis (1897), Oscar Wilde’s most famous (and according to him), most important letter, he regards their love story with brand new eyes: without love's distorted lens, and perhaps through the prism of contempt:
Had our life together been as the world fancied it to be, one simply of pleasure, profligacy and laughter, I would not be able to recall a single passage in it. It is because it was full of moments and days tragic, bitter, sinister in their warnings, dull or dreadful in their monotonous scenes and unseemly violences, that I can see or hear each separate incident in its detail...
He recounts his numerous failed attempts at leaving: There is bitterness in his acceptance of the merciless hold love had on him, despite his desperate attempts to be free.
But my fault was, not that I did not part from you, but that I parted from you far too often. As far as I can make out I ended my friendship with you every three months regularly, and each time that I did so you managed by means of entreaties, telegrams, letters, the interposition of your friends, the interposition of mine, and the like to induce me to allow you back.
I remember quite well… pointing out to you that we were spoiling each other’s lives, that you were absolutely ruining mine and that I evidently was not making you really happy, and that an irrevocable parting, a complete separation was the one wise philosophic thing to do…Before three days had elapsed you were telegraphing from London to beg to be forgiven and allowed to return…I was fond of you. So I let you come back and forgave you
And so I confess I saw in your letter…a very good opportunity for ending the fatal friendship…without bitterness…It was however represented to me…by one of my friends to whom you had gone…that, no matter what you wrote or did, you were absolutely and entirely devoted to me…devotion seemed to me, seems to me still, a wonderful thing, not to be lightly thrown away: so I took… you back.
...exactly three months later…I found myself actually flying abroad next morning to escape from you…The usual telegrams of entreaty and remorse followed: I disregarded them…Finally you threatened that unless I consented to meet you, you would…no[t]...proceed to Egypt…I knew that if you did not go it would be a terrible disappointment to [your mother] and for her sake I did meet you, and under the influence of great emotion…I forgave the past
…My mind was made up…At the end of three months, your mother…actually writes to me herself… tells me that you are extremely anxious to hear from me…I acknowledged her letter…but I did not write to you…Finally you actually telegraphed to my wife begging her…to get me to write to you…At her request I did…I said that time healed every wound but that for many months to come I would neither write to you nor see you…You started without delay for Paris…beg[ging] me to see you once, at any rate. I declined…you made what I must admit was a most pathetic appeal, and ended with what seemed to me a threat of suicide, and one not thinly veiled…Pity, my old affection for you, regard for your mother…all these…must serve as my excuse for consenting to accord you one last interview.
…the unfeigned joy you evinced at seeing me, holding my hand whenever you could, as though you were a gentle and penitent child: your contrition, so simple and sincere, at the moment: made me consent to renew our friendship…
I wonder if he admitted to himself, as I am loath to admit, that even in his attempted escapes, deep down there was irresolution. There possibly was a part of him that was happy to be held in love's cage.
Love incites you to think that the thing that harms you is beneficial; it motivates you to accept that self-mutilation is a small price to pay for its larger cause, that there is no replacing the feeling of ecstasy which it gives. Where there is a character flaw, it expunges it meticulously, expeditiously, leading you to believe that your mind has led you astray by the mis-portrayal of what is actually true. Re-energized by the glucose of hope and self-deceit, you abandon your plans to escape, and jump back into its grips, where it lets you hallucinate the ideal image which you crave, and find the fulfilment you seek in mere fantasies.
Love, unfortunately, does not bestow its madness in equal measure. There is often an unequal levelling of the playing field. Yet, all is fair in love, since there is (usually) no keeping score.
We see this as Oscar Wilde starts to recall his devotion. There is sorrow in his awareness of the emotional disparity that seemed to exist throughout their relationship.
The night we arrive you fall ill with…influenza…I waited on you, and tended you, not merely with every luxury…that money can procure, but with that affection, tenderness and love that…is not to be procured for money…I never left the hotel…After…you recover…I feel extremely ill…the doctor finds I have caught the influenza from you…There is no manservant to wait on one… But you are there. I feel no alarm. The next two days you leave me entirely alone without care, without attendance, without anything. On the Saturday night, you having left me completely unattended and alone since the morning, I asked you to come back after dinner, and sit with me for a little. With irritable voice and ungracious manner you promise to do so…you never appear…By the terrible alchemy of egotism you converted your remorse into rage. You accused me of selfishness in expecting you to be with me when I was ill…of standing between you and your amusements; of trying to deprive you of your pleasures
In the morning…I waited naturally to hear what excuses you had to make, and in what way you were going to ask for the forgiveness that you knew in your heart was invariably waiting for you, no matter what you did…
By Tuesday the fever had left me…Wednesday was my birthday…on my table was a letter in your handwriting. I opened it with a sense of sadness over me…You mocked me with common jests…You concluded your letter by saying: ‘When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting. The next time you are ill I will go away at once’...Ah! what coarseness of fibre does that reveal!...How callous
For you to write thus to me, when the very illness and fever from which I was suffering I had caught from tending you, was of course revolting in its coarseness and crudity;
My own griefs and bitternesses against you I forgot. What you had been to me in my sickness, I could not be to you in your bereavement…I felt that to abandon you at that particular moment…would have been too terrible for you…I made your sorrow mine also, that you might have help in bearing it. Never, even by one word, did I allude to your conduct towards me…
At a time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel… you insisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo…that all day, and all night as well, you might gamble…You refused to discuss even for five minutes the position to which you and your father had brought me. My business was merely to pay your hotel expenses and your losses. The slightest allusion to the ordeal awaiting me was regarded as a bore.
He bemoans his weakness, and counts his losses- both financial and personal. He questions his judgement. He blames his vices, and his virtues too.
To please you – what did I not do always to please you?...
You grew to think that you had a sort of right to live at my expense and in a profuse luxury…When I tell you that between the autumn of 1892 and the date of my imprisonment I spent with you and on you more than £5000 in actual money…such extravagance was a disgrace to both of us.
At Christmas I give you a ‘very pretty present’...When the crash of my life comes, and I am ruined, the bailiff who seizes my library, and has it sold, does so to pay for the ‘very pretty present’...
In your case, one had either to give up to you or to give you up…Through deep if misplaced affection for you…I gave up to you always
The basis of character is will-power, and my will-power became absolutely subject to yours
I had made a gigantic psychological error. I had always thought that my giving up to you in small things meant nothing: that when a great moment arrived I could reassert my will-power in its natural superiority. It was not so.
The gods are strange. It is not of our vices only they make instruments to scourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, humane, loving. But for my pity and affection for you and yours, I would not now be weeping in this terrible place.
He starts to consider that perhaps there is too high a price to pay, even for all that love promises.
Having made your own of my genius, my will-power, and my fortune, you required, in the blindness of an inexhaustible greed, my entire existence. You took it.
Love had turned to rage, to regret, to repulsion, to rancour. Love, making a show of leaving, had morphed into hatred.
In the clarity of love’s supposed absence, rationality seems to return with a belittling vengeance, emphasizing that the forbearance love insists on is (often) the minimization of self. The stupidity of self-sacrifice becomes apparent, and so does the indispensability of self-preservation.
I curse myself night and day for my folly in allowing him to dominate my life. If there was an echo in these walls it would cry ‘Fool’ for ever.
Yet, even in sobriety, the effects of addiction are long-lasting. There remain ever-present traces of the thing that once held you hostage, a timeless temptation for the state of inebriation in which you once lived.
Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin and public infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is often with me, and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt should for ever take that place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me:
After all was said and done, upon his release from prison, Oscar Wilde was soon writing beautiful letters to Alfred Douglas, and the two subsequently met and lived together for some time afterwards, until they were forced apart by threats from their families.
As soon as love gets the chance to drop its other acts and reprise its former role, it does so with all the fervour it can muster. It takes advantage of the addict's propensity to relapse; with little resistance, it binds them anew, with the same old shackles.
A truly haunting tragedy; a tale as old as time; a story conceived for tomorrow's birthing; a plot in the belly of a pregnant future.
Yet, Love remains (in)famous.
The bane of human existence. Poison so lethal that although we have evidence of its many dangers, we are still impatient to ingest it. Like the war on drugs, you fight it in vain. Love's power is in its capacity to render even the soundest minds insane; it warps even the sharpest, most critical minds; it befuddles the most clear-headed; it intoxicates even the most sober.
It has caused royalties to relinquish their birthrights, and kingdoms to fall. We have heard of men and women of great wealth who chose penury in their quest for love. It makes wise men happy to be called fools, and it makes the strong, incomprehensibly weak.
Yet, somehow, we still have an insatiable appetite for it, an unquenchable thirst for its sweet nectar.
In my other native language (Igbo), we have a saying, ihe natutọ, na egbu-egbu. Sweet things kill. We are aware of this truth, but while we are paralyzed by love's seduction, we rather choose to say, “What is life, if we are so afraid of dying, that we do not get to live?”
Maybe, you'd need to taste it yourself to come to your own conclusions, but as with every other drug, I can only advise that while you indulge, you do so with the utmost caution possible.
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