Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) The Trial of Oscar Wilde Issued for Private Circulation Only and Limited to 50 Copies on Japanese Vellum and Five Hundred Copies on Handmade Paper Numbered from One to Five Hundred and Fifty. No 184 The Trial of Oscar Wilde FROM THE SHORTHAND REPORTS Then gently scan your brither man, Still gentler, sister woman, Though they may gang a' kennin' wrang, To step aside is human. ROBT. BURNS. PARIS PRIVATELY PRINTED 1906 PREFACE "_It is wrong for us during the greater part of the time to handle these questions with timidity and false shame, and to surround them with reticence and mystery. Matters relating to sexual life ought to be studied without the introduction of moral prepossessions or of preconceived ideas. False shame is as hateful as frivolity. It is a matter of pressing concern to rid ourself of the old prejudice that we "sully our pens" by touching upon facts of this class. It is necessary at all costs to put aside our moral, esthetic, or religious personality, to regard facts of this nature merely as natural phenomena, with impartiality and a certain elevation of mind._" PREFACE _I blame equally as much those who take it upon themselves to praise man, as those who make it their business to blame him, together with others who think that he should be perpetually amused; and only those can I approve who seek for truth with tear-filled eyes._ PASCAL. In "_De Profundis_," that harmonious and last expression of the perfect artist, Wilde seems, in a single page to have concentrated in guise of supreme confession, all the pain and passion that stirred and sobbed in his soul.