“We who live in prison, & in whose lives there is no
event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, & the record of
bitter moments.”
On this day- May 19th in 1897, Oscar Wilde was released
from Reading Gayol Prison, outside of London, after serving 2 years of
"hard labour, hard fare & a hard bed" for a conviction of Gross
Indecency. His health had suffered greatly, but he had a feeling of spiritual
renewal. He immediately wrote to the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits, responsible
for my college education, by the way) requesting a 6 month Catholic retreat;
when the request was denied, Wilde wept.
Wilde left England the next day for the continent, to
spend his last 3 years in penniless exile. He took the name Sebastian
Melmoth, after Saint Sebastian. Wilde wrote 2 long letters to the editor
of the London Daily Chronicle, describing the brutal conditions of English prisons
& advocating penal reform.
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