reated with the greatest possible consideration.

Still, my advocacy had had a good effect.

Oscar himself has told us what the kindness shown to him in the last
six months of his prison life really did for him. He writes in _De
Profundis_ that for the first part of his sentence he could only wring
his hands in impotent despair and cry, "What an ending, what an
appalling ending!" But when the new spirit of kindness came to him, he
could say with sincerity: "What a beginning, what a wonderful
beginning!" He sums it all up in these words:

"Had I been released after eighteen months, as I hoped to be, I would
have left my prison loathing it and every official in it with a
bitterness of hatred that would have poisoned my life. I have had six
months more of imprisonment, but humanity has been in the prison with us
all the time, and now when I go out I shall always remember great
kindnesses that I have received here from almost everybody, and on the
day of my release I shall give many thanks to many people, and ask to be
remembered by them in turn."

This is the man whom Mr. Justice Wills addressed as insensible to any
high appeal.

Some time passed before I visited Oscar again. The change in him was
extraordinary. He was light-hearted, gay, and looked better than I had
ever seen him: clearly the austerity of prison life suited him. He met
me with a jest:

"It is you, Frank!" he cried as if astonished, "always original! You
come back to prison of your own free-will!"

He declared that the new governor--Major Nelson[3] was his name--had
been as kind as possible to him. He had not had a punishment for months,
and "Oh, Frank, the joy of reading when you like and writing as you
please--the delight of living again!" He was so infinitely improved that
his talk delighted me.

"What books have you?" I asked.

"I thought I should like the 'Oedipus Rex,'" he replied gravely; "but
I could not read it. It all seemed unreal to me. Then I thought of St.
Augustine, but he was worse still. The fathers of the Church were still
further away from me; they all found it so easy to repent and change
their lives: it does not seem to me easy. At last I got hold of Dante.
Dante was what I wanted. I read the 'Purgatorio' all through, forced
myself to read it in Italian to get the full savour and significance of
it. Dante, too, had been in the depths and drunk the bitter lees of
despair. I shall want a little library when I come out, a libra