Carey Street by Oscar Wilde — Read

Where there is sorrow there in holy ground. Some day people will realise / what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do, -- and / natures like his can realise it. When I was brought down from my prison / to the Court of Bankruptcy, between two policemen, -- waited in the long / dreary corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and / simple hushed into silence, 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 treasure-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, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of / those who have sought to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my / mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, 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. When people are able to / understand, not merely how beautiful -- -'s action was, but why it meant / so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they will / realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. .

The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we / are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man's life, a misfortune, a / casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of / one who is in prison as of one who is 'in trouble' simply. It is the / phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love / in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison / makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air / and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome / when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our / very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are / broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still live. We are / denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring / balm to the bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain. -- _De / Profundis_.