For
a year after...I wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of
time. That is not such a tragic thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those
who are in prison, tears are a part of every day’s experience. A day in prison
on which one does not weep is a day on which one’s heart is hard, not a day on
which one’s heart is happy.
Where
there is Sorrow there is holy ground. Some day you will realise what that
means. You will know nothing of life till you do.
When
I was brought down from my prison to the Court of Bankruptcy between two
policemen, [my old friend] Robbie waited in the long dreary corridor, that
before the whole crowd he might gravely raise his hat to me, as handcuffed and
with bowed head I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven for smaller things
than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode of love that the saints
knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or stooped to kiss the leper on the
cheek. I have never said one single word to him about what he did. I do not
know to the present moment whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his
action. It is not a thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal
words. I store it in the treasury-house of my heart. I keep it there as a
secret debt that I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed
and kept sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears.
When
Wisdom has been profitless to me, and Philosophy barren, and the proverbs and
phrases of those who have sought to give me consolation are as dust and ashes
in my mouth, the memory of that little lowly silent act of Love has unsealed
for me all the wells of pity, made the desert blossom like a rose, and brought
me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the wounded, broken,
and great heart of the world.
--Oscar
Wilde, De Profundis
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