nfident claim to unerring marksmanship, one
must hazard the opinion, that in this case Mr. Wilde has "shot wide."
There is indeed more of "poison" than of "perfection" in "Dorian Gray."

The central idea is an excellent, if not exactly a novel, one; and a
finer art, say that of Nathaniel Hawthorne, would have made a striking
and satisfying story of it. "Dorian Gray" is striking enough, in a
sense, but it is not "satisfying" artistically, any more than it is so
ethically. Mr. Wilde has preferred the senuous and hyperdecorative
manner of "Mademoiselle de Maupin," and without Gautier's power, has
spoilt a promising conception by clumsy unideal treatment.

His "decoration" (upon which he plumes himself) is indeed "laid on with a
trowel." The luxuriously elaborate details of his "artistic hedonism,"
are too suggestive of South Kensington Museum and aesthetic
Encyclopaedias. A truer art would have avoided both the glittering
conceits, which bedeck the body of the story, and the unsavoury
suggestiveness which lurks in its spirit.

Poisonous! Yes. But the loathly "leperous distilment" taints and spoils,
without in any way subserving "perfection," artistic or otherwise. If
Mrs. Grundy doesn't read it, the younger Grundies do; that is, the
Grundies who belong to Clubs, and who care to shine in certain sets
wherein this story will be much discussed. "I have read it, and, except
for the ingenious idea, I wish to forget it," says the Baron.

[27] See letter to _Daily Chronicle_ page 61.

* * * * *

_The note of doom that like a purple thread runs through the texture of
"Dorian Gray."_

* * * * *

A REVULSION FROM REALISM.[28]

By ANNE H. WHARTON.

In all ages and climes mankind has found delight in romances based upon
the mystic, the improbable and the impossible, from the days when the
Norse poets sang their Sagas through long Northern nights, and the fair
Scheherezade, under Southern moon, charmed her bloodthirsty lord by her
tales of wonder, to our own day, when Stevenson and Crawford and Haggard
hold fancy spellbound by their entirely improbable stories. Scott and
Bulwer played with master hands upon the love of the mysterious and
supernatural inherent in mankind; Dickens and others have essayed to
gratify its demands, but with less daring, and, having an eye always on
the moorings of the actual, their success has been less marked. With the
elder H