When I talked with Oscar in Reading Gaol¹, he told me that the only reason he didn’t write was that no one would accept his work. I assured him that I would publish it in The Saturday Review and would pay for it not only at the rate I paid Bernard Shaw but also if it increased the sale of the journal I’d try to compute² its value to the paper and give him that besides. He told me that was too liberal; he would be quite content with what I paid Shaw: he feared that no one else in England would ever publish his work again.

He promised to send me the book “De Profundis” as soon as it was finished. Just before his release his friend, Mr. More Adey, called upon me and wanted to know whether I would publish Oscar’s work. I said I would. He then asked me what I would give for it. I told him I didn’t want to make anything out of Oscar and would give him as much as I could, rehearsing the proposal I had made to Oscar. Thereupon he told me Oscar would prefer a fixed³ price. I thought the answer extraordinary and the gentle, urbane⁴ manner of Mr. More Adey, whom I hardly knew at that time and misunderstood, got on my nerves. I replied curtly⁵ that before I could state a price, I’d have to see the work, adding at the same time that I had wished to do Oscar a good turn, but, if he could find another publisher, I’d be delighted. Mr. More Adey assured me that there was nothing in the book to which any prude even could object, no arrière pensée of any kind, and so forth⁶ and so on. I answered with a jest, a wretched play on his French phrase.

That night I happened to dine with Whistler and telling him of what had occurred called forth a most stinging gibe⁷ at Oscar’s expense. Whistler’s mot cannot be published.

A week or two later Oscar asked me to get him some clothes, which I did and on his release sent them to him, and received in reply a letter thanking me which I reproduce on page 583.

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