He began by admitting the grave responsibility resting on Lord Queensberry, who accepted it to the fullest.  Lord Queensberry was justified in doing all he could do to cut short an acquaintance which must be disastrous to his son.  Mr. Carson wished to draw the attention of the jury to the fact that all these men with whom Mr. Wilde went about were discharged servants and grooms, and that they were all about the same age.  He asked the jury also to note that Taylor, who was the pivot of the whole case, had not yet been put in the box.  Why not?  He pointed out to the jury that the very same idea that was set forth in “The Priest and the Acolyte” was contained in Oscar Wilde’s letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, and the same idea was to be found in Lord Alfred Douglas’ poem, “The Two Loves,"[15] which was published in The Chameleon.  He went on to say that when, in the story of “The Priest and the Acolyte,” the boy was discovered in the priest’s bed,[16] the priest made the same defence as Mr. Wilde had made, that the world does not understand the beauty of this love.  The same idea was found again in “Dorian Gray,” and he read two or three passages from the book in support of this statement.  Mr. Wilde had described his letter to Lord Alfred Douglas as a prose sonnet.  He would read it again to the court, and he read both the letters.  “Mr. Wilde says they are beautiful,” he went on, “I call them an abominable piece of disgusting immorality.”

At this the Judge again shuffled his papers together and whispered in a quiet voice that the court would sit on the morrow, and left the room.

The honours of the day had all been with Mr. Carson.  Oscar left the box in a depressed way.  One or two friends came towards him, but the majority held aloof, and in almost unbroken silence everyone slipped out of the court.  Strange to say in my mind there was just a ray of hope.  Mr. Carson was still laying stress on the article in The Chameleon and scattered passages in “Dorian Gray”; on Oscar’s letters to Lord Alfred Douglas and Lord Alfred Douglas’ poems in The Chameleon.  He must see, I thought, that all this was extremely weak.  Sir Edward Clarke could be trusted to tear all such arguments, founded on literary work, to shreds.  There was room for more than reasonable doubt about all such things.

Why had not Mr. Carson put some of the young men he spoke of in the box?  Would he be able to do that?  He talked of Taylor as “the pivot of the case,” and gibed at the prosecution for not putting Taylor in the box.  Would he put Taylor in the box?  And why, if he had such witnesses at his beck and call, should he lay stress on the flimsy, weak evidence to be drawn from passages in books and poems and letters?  One thing was clear:  if he was able to put any of the young men in the box about whom he had examined Oscar, Oscar was ruined.  Even if he rested his defence on the letters and poems he’d win and Oscar would be discredited, for already it was clear that no jury would give Oscar Wilde a verdict against a father trying to protect his son.  The issue had narrowed down to terrible straits:  would it be utter ruin to Oscar or merely loss of the case and reputation?  We had only sixteen hours to wait; they seemed to me to hold the last hope.