The Poverty Bay Herald - Thursday, May 30, 1895

THE WILDE-QUEENSBERRY LIBEL SUIT.
EXTRAORDINARY UTTERANCES OF THE PLAINTIFF.

The London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times writes as follows:—

What makes the whole trial even more offensive than it is per se is the unblushing way in which Mr Wilde utilises the case as an advertisement of himself and his wares. I wonder the judge tolerated the flippances and impertinencies and irrelevancies with which he "showed off" to an admiring audience. He had evidently been at work for weeks "mugging up" smart sayings and quips and paradoxes with which to astonish his hearers. Some of them are worth quoting, if only to show how far sheer impudence may be carried by a witness in a court of law.

Mr Wilde, by the way, confessed to 39 years of age, but in cross-examination admitted to being born in 1854. Asked if a certain book was immoral, he replied, "It is worse, it is badly written." Mr Wilde holds that "wickedness is a myth invented by good people," that "religions die when they are proved to be true" that "if one tells the truth one is rue, sooner or later, to be found out." This last is characterised as "a pleasing paradox." "Anything," said Mr Wilde, "is good that stimulates though. . . . . There is no such thing as morality or immorality in thought. . . . Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness. . . . (another pleasing paradox!) and to realise oneself through pleasure is finer than to do so through pain. . . . A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes it"—"that," said Oscar, "would be my metaphysical definition of truth, something so personal that the same truth could never be appreciated by two minds."

"The condition of perfection is idleness," that, Mr Wilde thinks, is at least "half-true." He says further "there is something tragic about the enormous number of young men in England who are starting life with perfect profiles and end by adopting some useful profession." This Mr Wilde describes as "an amusing paradox." All these sapient aphorisms are from Mr Wilde's "Phrases and Philosophy for the Use of the Young." They were submitted to him in cross-examination for an expression of his matured opinion on their merits. Mr Wilde further stated that the only critic of the century whose opinion he set high was Mr Walter Peter: "That no work of art ever puts forward 'views' of any kind. 'Views' belong to people who are not artists." He held that the tone of his own writings could only be deemed immoral by "brutes and the illiterate—the views of the Philistines on art," said Oscar, "are incalculably stupid." He was afraid the majority of people were not cultivated enough to live up to the pose he had given them; but still, he admitted, he had "never discouraged them buying his books.' He begged that he might not be cross-examined about "the ignorance of other people," and declared he had "a great passion to civilise the community." He described one of his own letters to a friend as "a beautiful letter." "Was it an ordinary letter?" asked counsel. "Certainly not; I should think not!" replied Mr Wilde indignantly, amid roars of laughter. "It was a beautiful letter—unique, I should think." "Have you written others of this class?" was next asked. "There is no class in that letter," said Mr Wilde, proudly. "Have you written others like it?" "I don't repeat myself in style," was the lofty reply. Another letter was read. "Don't you think that was an extraordinary letter?" asked counsel. "I think everything I write is extraordinary" answered the modest Oscar. "I don't pose as being ordinary! Great Heavens!!" Several people had attempted to blackmail him, with the result that he gave them money very freely, and apparently constituted them his personal friends henceforward, calling them by their Christian names, regaling them at dinner, champagne lunches, &c, and otherwise entertaining them. "Everybody with few exceptions calls me by my Christian name," said the poetic Oscar, "and I like calling people by their Christian names." He did think it monstrous that a man with whom he was on such intimate terms should come to blackmail him, so he gave him 10s "to show my contempt for him—to show I didn't care twopence for him!" "Did you call him Alf?" was asked. "No," replied Mr Wilde, solemnly, 'I never use abbreviations. I called him Alfred." Being asked whether another passage in one of his writings was proper, Mr Wilde said, "I think it is the most perfect description possible of what an artist would feel." Asked whether he ever had the feeling of admiration for another which one of his heroes expresses, Oscar loftily responded, "I have never given admiration to any person except myself!" He regard it as "n intellectual treat" to his guests to be allowed to visit him. He did not know their age because he did not keep a census. He did not visit them. "It would not interest me to go and see Parker; it would interest Parker to call and see me," said Mr Wilde. "I do not like the sensible, and I do not like the old," he remarked, "and I do not care twopence for social position. I recognise no social distinction at all of any kind. I like the society of people much younger than myself. The society of young people is so wonderful. I would talk to a street Arab with more pleasure than I would be cross-examined by you in court. When asked if one visitor discussed literature with him "I would not allow it," said Oscar sternly.

These touches are amusing and characteristic of the man. He is emphatically a poseur and phraseur. He lives for notoriety.