John Francis Bloxam

“ But the young man had risen, pale to the lips.
“Hush!” he said in a low [52] voice; “I forbid you to speak of him before me with any thing but respect”; then softly to himself, “with any thing but reverence; with any thing but devotion.”
The other was silent, awed for the moment. Then his anger rose.
“Dare you speak openly like that? Where is your penitence, your shame? have you no sense of the horror of your sin?”
“There is no sin for which I should feel shame,” he answered very quietly. “God gave me my love for him, and He gave him also his love for me. ”

“ Your eyes are blinded with a mental cataract. You are bound, bound with those miserable ties that have held you body and soul from the cradle. You must do what you believe to be your duty. In God’s eyes we are martyrs, and we shall not shrink even from death in this struggle against the idolatrous worship of convention.”
Ronald Heatherington sank into a chair, hiding his face in his hands, and the rector left the room in silence.
For some minutes the young priest sat with his face buried in his hands. ”

“ My great desire has always been to find something that would satisfy me. I was attracted at once by sin: my whole early life is stained and polluted with the taint of sin. Sometimes even now I think that there are sins more beautiful than any thing else in the world. There are vices that are bound to attract almost irresistibly any one who loves [56] beauty above every thing. ”

“ If the world sees any thing she cannot understand, she assigns the basest motives to all concerned, supposing the presence of some secret shame, the idea of which, at least, her narrow-minded intelligence is able to grasp.
The people no longer regarded their priest as a saint, and his acolyte as an angel. They still spoke of them with bated breath and with their fingers on their lips ”

“ When that most wonderful thing in the whole world, [31] complete soul-absorbing love for another, suddenly strikes a man, that man knows what heaven means, and he understands hell: but if the man be an ascetic, a priest whose whole heart is given to ecstatic devotion, it were better for that man if he had never been born. ”

“ I have always sought for love: again and again I have been the victim of fits of passionate affection: time after time I have seemed to have found my ideal at last: the whole object of my life has been, times without number, to gain the love of some particular person. ”

“ So far as your own works are [20] concerned you pose as not being concerned about morality or immorality?
I do not know whether you use the word “pose” in any particular sense.
It is a favourite word of your own.
Is it? I have no pose in this matter. In writing a play or a book I am concerned entirely with literature, that is, with art. I aim not at doing good or evil but in trying to make a thing that will have some quality of beauty. ”

“ It would show very bad literary taste. I strongly objected to the whole story. I took no steps to express public disapproval of The Chameleon, because I think it would have been beneath my dignity as a man of letters to associate myself with an Oxford undergraduate’s productions. I am aware that the magazine might have been circulated among the undergraduates of Oxford, but I do not believe that any book or work of art ever had any effect whatever on morality.
Am I right in saying that you do not consider the effect in creating morality or immorality? ”

“ Ronald Heatherington rose to his feet and laid his hand on the rector’s arm.
“You do not understand me. I have never been attracted by a woman in my life. Can you not see that people are different, totally different, from one [59] another? To think that we are all the same is impossible; our natures, our temperaments, are utterly unlike. ”

“ He said the solemn words with a reverence and devotion that made the few poor people who happened to be there speak of him afterwards almost with awe; while the face of the little acolyte at his side shone with a fervour which made them ask each other what this strange light could mean. Surely the young priest must be a saint indeed, while the boy beside him looked more like an angel from heaven than any child of human birth.
PART II [45]
THE world is very stern with those that thwart her. ”

“ The author of the story was an undergraduate at Oxford, “an insufficiently birched schoolboy,” as he has recently been described, and he alone was responsible for the contents of the magazine which he edited. At the time of the trial of Lord Queensberry for libel a few months later it was attempted to show that Oscar Wilde not only approved of the theme of the story, but that he was actually a party to the publication of it, on the grounds that he sent to the editor a number of aphorisms under the title of “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young.” ”

“ The instant he had received, Ronald fell on his knees beside him and drained the chalice to the last drop. He set it down [70] and threw his arms round the beautiful figure of his dearly loved acolyte. ”

“ One law laid down by the majority, who happen to be of one disposition, is only binding on the minority legally, not morally. What right have you, or any one, to tell me that such and such a thing is sinful for me? ”

“ A very large portion of the evidence of Wilde at the Queensberry trial was devoted to what Sir Edward Clarke had called “the literary part of the case,” and it had been attempted to show by cross-examination that Wilde was a man of most unprincipled character with regard to the relation of men to boys. ”

“ Was that disapproval expressed to the editor?
Yes.
Oscar Wilde was then cross-examined by Mr. Carson for the defence.
You read “The Priest and the Acolyte”?
Yes.
You have no doubt that that was an improper story?
From the literary point of view it was highly improper. It is impossible for a man of literature to judge it otherwise, by literature meaning treatment, selection of subject, and the like. I thought the treatment rotten and the subject rotten.
You are of opinion, I believe, [16] that there is no such thing as an immoral book? ”

“ Then they knelt together, hand in hand, before the crucifix.
“Pray for me, my darling.”
Then together their prayers silently ascended that the dear Lord would have pity on the [66] priest who had fallen in the terrible battle of life. There they knelt till midnight, when Ronald took the lad in his arms and carried him to the little chapel.
“I will say mass for the repose of our souls,” he said. ”

“ The learned Counsel who represented Lord Queensberry, the Judge continued, had called attention to a story, a filthy narrative of a most disgusting character, called “The Priest and the Acolyte,” of which the author, who signed himself “X,” should be thoroughly ashamed. With that story Wilde had had nothing whatever to do, and to impute to him any thing in it was quite absurd. To judge him by another man’s works which he had never seen would be highly unjust.
[25] In the second trial of Oscar Wilde, which was heard before Mr. ”