pederasty was common and open. Unlike the author, he had had no religious training, and when adult seems always to have turned the cold shoulder on the Church. Some of his writings were positively blasphemous. He would boast also that for him morality was non-existent—only the beautiful. While possibly irresponsible to a considerable degree for his pederasty, he was decidedly to be blamed for flaunting it in the face of everybody. On the whole, he was, because of his exalted position and his writings, the most pernicious influence of the 19th century on British, morals. The puritan element were quick to take advantage of his arrest under the charge of being a "corrupter of youth," and jumped into the fray. The slums of London were combed in order to find witnesses.
From Harris's "Oscar Wilde and His Confessions" I quote Wilde's most striking defensive statement at his trial:
"The 'love' that dare not speak its name in this century is such a great affection of an older for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very base of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare—a deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect, and dictates great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michael Angelo and those two letters of mine [evidence against him], such as they are, and which is in this century misunderstood—so misunderstood that, on account of it, I am placed where I am now [in the prisoner's dock]. It is beautiful; it is fine; it is the noblest form of affection. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists
