Oscar Wilde 90 [Transcriber’s Note:  This illustration is not in the original list.]

VOLUME II

Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas About 1893 321

“Speranza”:  Lady Wilde as a Young Woman 358

Note to Warder Martin 576

     The crucifixion of the guilty is still more awe-inspiring
     than the crucifixion of the innocent; what do we men know of
     innocence?

INTRODUCTION

I was advised on all hands not to write this book, and some English friends who have read it urge me not to publish it.

“You will be accused of selecting the subject,” they say, “because sexual viciousness appeals to you, and your method of treatment lays you open to attack.

“You criticise and condemn the English conception of justice, and English legal methods:  you even question the impartiality of English judges, and throw an unpleasant light on English juries and the English public—­all of which is not only unpopular but will convince the unthinking that you are a presumptuous, or at least an outlandish, person with too good a conceit of himself and altogether too free a tongue.”

I should be more than human or less if these arguments did not give me pause.  I would do nothing willingly to alienate the few who are still friendly to me.  But the motives driving me are too strong for such personal considerations.  I might say with the Latin: 

    “Non me tua fervida terrent,
    Dicta, ferox:  Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.”

Even this would be only a part of the truth.  Youth it seems to me should always be prudent, for youth has much to lose:  but I am come to that time of life when a man can afford to be bold, may even dare to be himself and write the best in him, heedless of knaves and fools or of anything this world may do.  The voyage for me is almost over:  I am in sight of port:  like a good shipman, I have already sent down the lofty spars and housed the captious canvas in preparation for the long anchorage:  I have little now to fear.

And the immortals are with me in my design.  Greek tragedy treated of far more horrible and revolting themes, such as the banquet of Thyestes:  and Dante did not shrink from describing the unnatural meal of Ugolino.  The best modern critics approve my choice.  “All depends on the subject,” says Matthew Arnold, talking of great literature:  “choose a fitting action—­a great and significant action—­penetrate yourself with the feeling of the situation:  this done, everything else will follow; for expression is subordinate and secondary.”