st for him this side
the grave.

But what of defeat? What sweet is there in its bitter? This may be said
for it; it is our great school: punishment teaches pity, just as
suffering teaches sympathy. In defeat the brave soul learns kinship with
other men, takes the rub to heart; seeks out the reason for the fall in
his own weakness, and ever afterwards finds it impossible to judge, much
less condemn his fellow. But after all no one can hurt us but ourselves;
prison, hard labour, and the hate of men; what are these if they make
you truer, wiser, kinder?

Have you come to grief through self-indulgence and good-living? Here are
months in which men will take care that you shall eat badly and lie
hard. Did you lack respect for others? Here are men who will show you no
consideration. Were you careless of others' sufferings? Here now you
shall agonize unheeded: gaolers and governors as well as black cells
just to teach you. Thank your stars then for every day's experience,
for, when you have learned the lesson of it and turned its discipline
into service, the prison shall transform itself into a hermitage, the
dungeon into a home; the burnt skilly shall be sweet in your mouth; and
your rest on the plank-bed the dreamless slumber of a little child.

And if you are an artist, prison will be more to you than this; an
astonishing vital and novel experience, accorded only to the chosen.
What will you make of it? That's the question for you. It is a wonderful
opportunity. Seen truly, a prison's more spacious than a palace; nay,
richer, and for a loving soul, a far rarer experience. Thank then the
spirit which steers men for the divine chance which has come to you;
henceforth the prison shall be your domain; in future men will not think
of it without thinking of you. Others may show them what the good things
of life do for one; you will show them what suffering can do, cold and
regretful sleepless hours and solitude, misery and distress. Others will
teach the lessons of joy. The whole vast underworld of pity and pain,
fear and horror and injustice is your kingdom. Men have drawn darkness
about you as a curtain, shrouded you in blackest night; the light in you
will shine the brighter. Always provided of course that the light is not
put out altogether.

Hammer or anvil? How would Oscar Wilde take punishment?

* * * * *

We could not know for months. Yet he was an artist by nature--that gave
one a gli