ars you had entirely ruined me from
every point of view.

After my terrible sentence, when the prison dress was on me, and the
prison house closed, I sat amidst the ruins of my wonderful life,
crushed by anguish, bewildered with terror, dazed through pain. But I
would not hate you. Every day I said to myself, "I must keep love in my
heart to-day, else how shall I live through the day?" I reminded myself
that you meant no evil to me at any rate....

It all flashed across me, and I remember that for the first and last
time in my entire prison life, I laughed. In that laugh was all the
scorn of all the world. Prince Fleur de lys! I saw that nothing that had
happened had made you realise a single thing. You were, in your own
eyes, still the graceful prince of a trivial comedy, not the sombre
figure of a tragic show.

Had there been nothing in your heart to cry out against so vulgar a
sacrilege, you might at least have remembered the sonnet he wrote who
saw with such sorrow and scorn the letters of John Keats sold by public
auction in London, and have understood at last the real meaning of my
lines:

"... I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat."

One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed on one, nor rise
up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.

I cannot allow you to go through life bearing in your heart the burden
of having ruined a man like me.

Does it ever occur to you what an awful position I would have been in
if, for the last two years, during my appalling sentence, I had been
dependent on you as a friend? Do you ever think of that? Do you ever
feel any gratitude to those who by kindness without stint, devotion
without limit, cheerfulness and joy in giving, have lightened my black
burden for me, have arranged my future life for me, have visited me
again and again, have written to me beautiful and sympathetic letters,
have managed my affairs for me, have stood by me in the teeth of
obloquy, taunt, open sneer or insult even? I thank God every day that he
gave me friends other than you. I owe everything to them. The very books
in my cell are paid for by Robbie out of his pocket money. From the same
source[55] are to come clothes for me when I am released. I am not
ashamed of taking a thing that is given by love and affection. I am
proud of it. But do you ever think of what friends such as Mor