human
I am bringing an action against Queensberry, Frank, he began gravely,
gpt
Yes, I replied at once,
human
I should be perfectly willing, and I could say more than that; I could say that you are one of the very few men I have ever known whose talk and whose writings were vowed away from grossness of any sort.
gpt
Oh! Frank, would you? It would be so kind of you, he cried out.
human
My solicitors said I ought to ask you, but they were afraid you would not like to come: your evidence will win the case. It is good of you.
gpt
Anything I can do, Oscar, I said,
human
I shall do with pleasure, and, as you know, to the uttermost; but I want you to consider the matter carefully. An English court of law gives me no assurance of a fair trial or rather I am certain that in matters of art or morality an English court is about the worst tribunal in the civilised world.
gpt
I cannot help it, I cannot alter it,
human
You must listen to me, I insisted.
gpt
You remember the Whistler and Ruskin action. You know that Whistler ought to have won. You know that Ruskin was shamelessly in fault; but the British jury and the so-called British artists treated Whistler and his superb work with contempt. Take a different case altogether, the Belt case, where all the Academicians went into the witness box, and asserted honestly enough that Belt was an impostor, yet the jury gave him a verdict of £5,000, though a year later he was sent to penal servitude for the very frauds which the jury in the first trial had declared by their verdict he had not committed. An English law court is all very well for two average men, who are fighting an ordinary business dispute. That's what it's made for, but to judge a Whistler or the ability or the immorality of an artist is to ask the court to do what it is wholly unfit to do. There is not a judge on the bench whose opinion on such a matter is worth a moment's consideration, and the jury are a thousand years behind the judge.
human
That may be true, Frank; but I cannot help it.
gpt
Don't forget, I persisted,
human
How terrible you are, Frank. You know it is Bosie Douglas who wants me to fight, and my solicitors tell me I shall win.
gpt
Solicitors live on quarrels. Of course they want a case that will bring hundreds if not thousands of pounds into their pockets. Besides they like the fight. They will have all the kudos of it and the fun, and you will pay the piper. For God's sake don't be led into it: that way madness lies.
human
But, Frank, he objected weakly,
gpt
That's another story, I replied.
human
Let us by all means weigh what is to be done. But let us begin by putting the law-courts out of the question. Don't forget that you are challenged to mortal combat. Let us consider how the challenge should be met, but we won't fight under Queensberry rules because Queensberry happens to be the aggressor. Don't forget that if you lose and Queensberry goes free, everyone will hold that you have been guilty of nameless vice. Put the law courts out of your head. Whatever else you do, you must not bring an action for criminal libel against Queensberry. You are sure to lose it; you haven't a dog's chance, and the English despise the beaten--_væ victis_! Don't commit suicide.