De Profundis and Other Prison Writings

by Oscar Wilde

The high priest of flippancy and mocking laughter has set himself suddenly and shockingly against shallowness; he is desperately hurt and wounded, but he is still in command of his sentences, their structure and their sweep. In the dim light of the prison cell and with the memory of his suffering fresh, it was as though he sought a new sort of tension in his writing between breathlessness and breath-control. He writes long and highly wrought sentences, loving lists of adjectives and clever, Latinate diction and elaborate punctuation. To be followed by a pure, plain statement, full of the clipped sharp tone of the Anglo-Saxon.

But pity seems to beat in vain at the doors of officialism; and power, no less than punishment, kills what else were good and gentle in a man: the man without knowing it loses his natural kindliness, or grows afraid of its exercise.

the horror of prison is the horror of complete brutalisation: that is the abyss always in front of one, branding itself on one’s face daily, and the faces of those one sees.

Tell me about that world of shadows I loved so much. And about his life and soul tell me also. I am curious of the thing that stung me: and in my pain there is pity.

In every relation of life with others one has to find some moyen de vivre. In your case, one had either to give up to you or to give you up. There was no other alternative. Through deep if misplaced affection for you: through great pity for your defects of temper and temperament: through my own proverbial good-nature and Celtic laziness: through an artistic aversion to coarse scenes and ugly words: through that incapacity to bear resentment of any kind which at that time characterised me: through my dislike of seeing life made bitter and uncomely by what to me, with my eyes really fixed on other things, seemed to be mere trifles too petty for more than a moment’s thought or interest – through these reasons, simple as they may sound, I gave up to you always.

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.