never allowed the dictum of the law to interfere with what I deemed to be a moral development in any youth for whom I am responsible.  I cannot say that the trial made me alter my course of life, of the rightness of which I was too convincingly persuaded, but it made me much more careful, and it probably sharpened my sense of responsibility for the young.  Reviewing the results of the trial as a whole, it doubtless did incalculable harm, and it intensified our national vice of hypocrisy.  But I think it also may have done some good in that it made those who, like myself, have thought and experienced deeply in the matter—­and these must be no small few—­ready to strike a blow, when the time comes, for what we deem to be right, honorable, and clean.”

    From America a lady writes with reference to the moral position
    of inverts, though without allusion to the Wilde trial:—­

“Inverts should have the courage and independence to be themselves, and to demand an investigation.  If one strives to live honorably, and considers the greatest good to the greatest number, it is not a crime nor a disgrace to be an invert.  I do not need the law to defend me, neither do I desire to have any concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice their ideals for me.  I too have ideals which I shall always hold.  All that I desire—­and I claim it as my right—­is the freedom to exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to society nor a disgrace to me.  Let it once be understood that the average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate, but simply a man or a woman who is less highly specialized, less completely differentiated, than other men and women, and I believe the prejudice against them will disappear, and if they live uprightly they will surely win the esteem and consideration of all thoughtful people.  I know what it means to an invert—­who feels himself set apart from the rest of mankind—­to find one human heart who trusts him and understands him, and I know how almost impossible this is, and will be, until the world is made aware of these facts.”

But, while the law has had no more influence in repressing abnormal sexuality than, wherever it has tried to do so, it has had in repressing the normal sexual instinct, it has served to foster another offense.  What is called blackmailing in England, chantage in France, and Erpressung in Germany—­in other words, the extortion of money by threats of exposing some real or fictitious offense—­finds its chief field of activity in connection with homosexuality.[274] No doubt the removal of the penalty against simple homosexuality does not abolish blackmailing, as the existence of this kind of chantage in France shows, but it renders its success less probable.