Such inquisitive interest is sometimes the sign of an emerging homosexual
impulse. It proved to be so in Wilde's case and ultimately he was found to
be cultivating the acquaintance of youths of low class and doubtful
character. Although this development occurred comparatively late in life,
we must hesitate to describe Wilde's homosexuality as acquired. If we
consider his constitution and his history, it is not difficult to suppose
that homosexual germs were present in a latent form from the first, and it
may quite well be that Wilde's inversion was of that kind which is now
described as retarded, though still congenital.
As is usual in England, no active efforts were made to implicate Wilde in
any criminal charge. It was his own action, as even he himself seems to
have vaguely realized beforehand, which brought the storm about his head.
He was arrested, tried, condemned, and at once there arose a general howl
of execration, joined in even by the judge, whose attitude compared
unfavorably with the more impartial attitude of the eighteenth century
judges in similar cases. Wilde came out of prison ambitious to retrieve
his reputation by the quality of his literary work.
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