Bristol Mercury - Monday, May 27, 1895

Oscar Wilde.

It is ground for relief and satisfaction that though the hand of justice has been slow it has been sure, and, Oscar Wilde, with all his brazen effrontery, will not escape the inadequate penality of his nameless crimes. It is perhaps to the credit of British juries that it is notoroiously difficult to induce them to receive as fact what is deposed to in cases of this nature. But there were circumstances in this case beside the disagreement of the former jury, such as the foolish secrecy about certain names, the exceptional position adopted by Sir Edward Clarke, and the usurpation by Mr Justice Wills of the functions of a jury in deciding upon a witness's state of mind, which all gave rise to a very uneasy feling in the popular mind. Although the imputation would have been unfounded, the failure to secure a conviction would have given rise to a widespread opinion that the law had not been impartially administered. The healthy sentiments uttered by the Solicitor Geners. express the feeling of cleanminded men with regard to the hateful business, and the words of the judge at the close of the trial were worthy of the highest traditions of the English bench. The causes which wrought the corruption and decay of Roman society in the days of the later Emperors will work the same effects in any community, and after the brave words of Sir Frank Lockwood, we trust that no hesitation or misplaced leniency will prevent the measures necessary for the complete stamping out of the plague spot which the Marquis of Queensberry alone had the courage to force upon the public notice. It is, of course, natural to entertain a feeling of regret that a man of the education, position, and undoubted talent of Oscar Wilde should have sunk so low, and have sacrificed his own bright prospects of literary face and success, as well as the peace and happiness of his unfortunate family. But we do shrink from the responsibility of saying that the world will be all the better for the evidence of what the aesthetic craze, of which he was the apostle, tends to. It is all very well to be witty and to excite admiration by daring quips and epigrams. But no man ventures with impunity to verse the teachings of nature, and just as the skilled psychologist can detect incipient death in what to others may appear mere restless activity, so the worship of the tulip and lily, with its kindred absurdities, is the sure beginning of a general paralysis of the moral and intellectual nature. Much literary garbage has circulation upon the pretext of sincerity in Art, which, when most abused, is always spelt with a larger capital letter. But effiminate youths and unfeminine women will probably pause when they perceive the abyss towards which their footsteps are hurrying. Hitherto the natural protests of wholesome minds have been disregarded as material and uncomprehending criticism, but now it is made abundantly clear on which side lies the peverted imagination, and the truer instincts of public taste will be able to reassert themselves. We by no means uphold a puritanical repression or a hypocritical disregard of the verities of human weakness. It is not possible always to prophesy sweet and pleasant things, but outspoken honesty is widely different from giving a false veneer of romance and beauty to the diseased and unnatural. Men attach much importance to the difference between the ring of good money and false. Oscar Wilde was one of the leaders of those who tried to make out that this distinction does not apply in literature and art, but in future sentiments and ideas which will ring false will, it may be hoped, be all the more prompty nailed to the counter.