nd a contrite heart
The Lord will not despise.

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is beyond all comparison the greatest
ballad in English: one of the noblest poems in the language. This is
what prison did for Oscar Wilde.

When speaking to him later about this poem I remember assuming that his
prison experiences must have helped him to realise the suffering of the
condemned soldier and certainly lent passion to his verse. But he would
not hear of it.

"Oh, no, Frank," he cried, "never; my experiences in prison were too
horrible, too painful to be used. I simply blotted them out altogether
and refused to recall them."

"What about the verse?" I asked:

"We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
And in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still."

"Characteristic details, Frank, merely the _decor_ of prison life, not
its reality; that no one could paint, not even Dante, who had to turn
away his eyes from lesser suffering."

It may be worth while to notice here, as an example of the hatred with
which Oscar Wilde's name and work were regarded, that even after he had
paid the penalty for his crime the publisher and editor, alike in
England and America, put anything but a high price on his best work.
They would have bought a play readily enough because they would have
known that it would make them money, but a ballad from his pen nobody
seemed to want. The highest price offered in America for "The Ballad of
Reading Gaol" was one hundred dollars. Oscar found difficulty in getting
even L20 for the English rights from the friend who published it; yet it
has sold since by hundreds of thousands and is certain always to sell.

I must insert here part of another letter from Oscar Wilde which
appeared in _The Daily Chronicle_, 24th March, 1898, on the cruelties of
the English prison system; it was headed, "Don't read this if you want
to be happy to-day," and was signed by "The Author of 'The Ballad of
Reading Gaol.'" It was manifestly a direct outcome of his prison
experiences. The letter was simple and affecting; but it had little or
no influence on the English conscience. The Home Secretary was about to
reform (!) the prison system by appointing more inspectors. Oscar Wilde
pointed out that inspectors could do nothing but see that the
regulations were carried out. He took up the position that it