Dear Oscar,

I wonder what happened to you when you received the missive from Queensberry, Lord Alfred’s father, calling you a ‘sondomite’ (sic). I suspect that you flew into an over-emotional rage, or maybe you rolled your eyes in a world-weary way, or guffawed at his poor understanding of the English language, or felt superior, probably that above all, felt superior to his brutish ways with your over-developed sense of aesthetic propriety. It must also have been very strange, in that moment, to be confronted with some level of truth, if truth it were, that you were a ‘sondomite’ (sic). It must have been disconcerting in the back of your mind, thinking over the many conquests that you had enjoyed, the interplay with the ‘street-arabs’, the establishments through which you had prowled in your search for the ‘panthers’. Even if in actuality you had never practised the art to which ‘sondomite’ (sic) refers, I am sure there was the ring of truth to the accusation – remember the ‘soiled sheets’ that were referenced by the chamber-maid at your trial, or did she lie? Was she paid to lie? That ring of truth must have smacked you hard, caught you sharp, made the very instant when you read the word – ‘sondomite’ (sic) – one that chimed sonorously something of a death knell in your mind, a reverberation that has never left you through history.

I am concentrating upon it, Oscar dear, not because I wish to torture you in any way, not because I wish to bring up the most painful of memories for you (and I am sure this was not the most painful), but because I am interested in what we all do when moments occur that rattle our being, shake us to the core, make us stop and stand still, and start to think things through. My suspicion, as I say, is that you reacted in an over-dramatic way to the accusation, whether or not that was made manifest in your behaviour or outlook; I suspect that inwardly you ‘flipped’. This of course jeopardised the next few moments, and then put into question your reactions as they ensued, as it must for all of us, when we are shocked, when we are caught up short. Those ripples of after-effect come to condition to no small degree all that happens next, but only moment by moment, each second unfolding, becoming something in itself, building up the slow minutes, and then the passage of time, and then those little ripples swell to be a tsunami. It puts into our own hands a huge amount of power, as orchestrators, as directors, as the ones who are in change of fate as it unfolds, the future as it is made known, destiny. There is probably a time for the over-dramatic, for the flying off the handle and taking sudden control, but is it a time linked to high emotion, linked so inextricably to fear, making of each act, each singular response, something of a portent? My dawning understanding is that in those moments our actions may well be ill-judged, and not fully formed, and not take into account all of the many influences and variables that might come to take effect. For you, Oscar dear, with your wounded pride, and your public reputation to defend, and the investments of those who were close to you, those who were benefiting from your wealth and your celebrity, it was the precursor of a now infamous doom. Or so the narrative goes. That is the story that is told. It may be true, it may only be an interpretation. It may be myth. What we know however is that you were carted off to a prison cell, that you did undergo what was known as ‘hard labour’, and that your career was left in tatters. Rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly, that bears the ring of truth.

My own interpretation is that you did not remain steady, and that your ego came to the fore, and that you played a greater part in your downfall than might at first be acknowledged, that in effect you were not only a victim of the age, but an architect of it. Now I know that you were given few choices, that as the net tightened around you there were fewer and fewer outcomes possible that might have brought to you a different fate, but I cannot help thinking that choices are always present, no matter the circumstance, and that therefore different conclusions can be reached. You may not have come to be a symbol of your age, nor a touchstone for liberatory potential, but you could have been a happier man. It is a question, is it not: to put yourself on the cross to be crucified, or to live on?

I am presented with my moments, moment by moment, the now, and now, and now. The lessons to be learned from your example reach deeply, and take me into contemplation, and make my choices ever manifest …

Your friend,

Algernon B. Duffoure.