fair
skies and fairer streets:

And joy was there; in all the city's length
I saw no fingers trembling for the sword;
Nathless they doted on their bodies' strength,
That they might gentler be. Love was their lord.

Both America and England to-day offer terrifying examples of the
despotism of an unenlightened and vulgar public opinion in all the
highest concerns of man--in art, in literature and in religion. There
is no despotism on earth so soul-destroying to the artist: it is baser
and more degrading than anything known in Russia. The consequences of
this tyranny of an uneducated middle class and a barbarian aristocracy
are shown in detail in the trial of Oscar Wilde and in the savagery
with which he was treated by the English officers of justice.

CHAPTER XV

As soon as I heard that Oscar Wilde was arrested and bail refused, I
tried to get permission to visit him in Holloway. I was told I should
have to see him in a kind of barred cage; and talk to him from the
distance of at least a yard. It seemed to me too painful for both of
us, so I went to the higher authorities and got permission to see him
in a private room. The Governor met me at the entrance of the prison:
to my surprise he was more than courteous; charmingly kind and
sympathetic.

"We all hope," he said, "that he will soon be free; this is no place
for him. Everyone likes him, everyone. It is a great pity."

He evidently felt much more than he said, and my heart went out to
him. He left me in a bare room furnished with a small square deal
table and two kitchen chairs. In a moment or two Oscar came in
accompanied by a warder. In silence we clasped hands. He looked
miserably anxious and pulled down and I felt that I had nothing to do
but cheer him up.

"I am glad to see you," I cried. "I hope the warders are kind to
you?"

"Yes, Frank," he replied in a hopeless way, "but everyone else is
against me: it is hard."

"Don't harbour that thought," I answered; "many whom you don't know,
and whom you will never know, are on your side. Stand for them and for
the myriads who are coming afterwards and make a fight of it."

"I'm afraid I'm not a fighter, Frank, as you once said," he replied
sadly, "and they won't give me bail. How can I get evidence or think
in this place of torture? Fancy refusing me bail," he went on, "though
I stayed in London when I might have gone abroad."

"You should have gone," I cried in French, hot with