Belfast News-Letter - Tuesday, May 28, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE.
The "Daily Telegraph" says—No sterner rebuke could well have been inflicted on some of the artistic tendencies of the time than the condemnation on Saturday of Oscar Wilde at the Central Criminal Court. We have not the slightest intention of reviewing once more all the sordid incidents of a case which has done enough, and more than enough, to shock the conscience and outrage the moral instincts of the community. The man has now suffered the penalties of his career, and may well be allowed to pass from that platform of publicity which he loved into that limbo of disreputation and forgetfulness which is his due. The grave of contemptuous oblivion may rest on his foolish ostentation, his empty paradoxes, his insufferable posturing, his incurable vanity. Nevertheless, when we remember that he enjoyed a certain popularity among some sections of society, and, above all, when we reflect that what was smiled at as insolent braggadocio was the cover for, or at all events ended in, flagrant immorality, it is well perhaps that the lesson of his life should not be passed over without some insistance of the terrible warning of his fate.
No sterner rebuke could well have been inflicted on some of the artistic tendencies of the time than the condemnation on Saturday of Oscar Wilde at the Central Criminal Court. We have not the slightest intention of reviewing once more all the sordid incidents of a case which has done enough and more than enough to shock the conscience and outrage the moral instincts of the community. The man has now suffered the penalties of his career, and may well be allowed to pass from that platform of publicity which he loved into that limbo of disrepute and forgetfulness which is his due. The grave of contemptuous oblivion may rest on his foolish ostentation, his empty paradoxes, his insufferable posturing, his incurable vanity. Nevertheless, when we remember that he enjoyed a certain popularity among some sections of Society, and above all when we reflect that what was smiled at as insolent braggadocio was the cover for, or, at all events ended in flagrant immorality, it is well perhaps that the lesson of his life should not be passed over without insistence on the terrible warning of his fate.
The "Daily Chronicle" says—The trial has been terribly prolonged, and we all know the evil contagion of morbid criminal trials. However, there has been a purge, and we hope London is the better for it. The herding of boys in great schools, their too early separation from their homes and from association with their mother and sisters, and the fact that, after a certain age, parents become almost strangers to their children—all these things, coupled with the tasteless luxury that rich parents hold out as a poisonous lure to idle young men and women afford a terribly wide margin for the gradual perversion of heart and intellect. It is clear that if we are to tread safely the slippery path of civilisation, if we are not to fall back into decadent paganism—we must harden and simplify our lives. Plain living and high thinking is not only the poet's watchword, it is the watchword of the democrat, the good citizen, and the man of sense.