I have "cleansed my bosom of much perilous stuff"; to borrow a
phrase from the poet whom you and I once thought of rescuing from the
Philistines. I need not remind you that mere expression is to an artist
the supreme and only mode of life. It is by utterance that we live. Of
the many, many things for which I have to thank the Governor there is
none for which I am more grateful than for his permission to write fully
and at as great a length as I desire. For nearly two years I had within
a growing burden of bitterness, of much of which I have now got rid. On
the other side of the prison wall there are some poor black
soot-besmirched trees that are just breaking out into buds of an almost
shrill green. I know quite well what they are going through. They are
finding expression.

Ever yours,

OSCAR.

--_Letter from Reading Prison to Robert Ross_.

CAREY STREET

Where there is sorrow there in holy ground. Some day people will realise
what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do,--and
natures like his can realise it. When I was brought down from my prison
to the Court of Bankruptcy, between two policemen,--waited in the long
dreary corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and
simple hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as,
handcuffed and with bowed head, I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven
for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode
of love, that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or
stooped to kiss the leper on the cheek. I have never said one single
word to him about what he did. I do not know to the present moment
whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action. It is not a
thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal words. I store it
in the treasure-house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that
I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed and kept
sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears. When wisdom has been
profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of
those who have sought to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my
mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act of love has unsealed
for me all the wells of pity: made the desert blossom like a rose, and
brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the
wounded, broken, and great heart of the world. When people are able to
understand, not merely how beautiful ---'s action was, but why it meant
so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they will
realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. . . .

The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we
are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man's life, a misfortune, a
casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of
one who is in prison as of one who is 'in trouble' simply. It is the
phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love
in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison
makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air
and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome
when we reappear.