wholesome dislike of the common-place, rightly or wrongly identified
by him with the _bourgeois_, with our middle-class--its habits and
tastes--leads him to protest emphatically against so-called "realism" in
art; life, as he argues, with much plausibility, as a matter of fact,
when it is really awake, following art--the fashion of an effective
artist sets; while art, on the other hand, influential and effective
art, has taken its cue from actual life. In "Dorian Gray" he is true,
certainly, on the whole, to the aesthetic philosophy of his _Intentions_;
yet not infallibly, even on this point: there is a certain amount of the
intrusion of real life and its sordid aspects--the low theatre, the
pleasures and griefs, the faces of some very unrefined people, managed,
of course, cleverly enough. The interlude of Jim Vane, his half-sullen
but wholly faithful care for his sister's honour, is as good as perhaps
anything of the kind, marked by a homely but real pathos, sufficiently
proving a versatility in the writer's talent, which should make his
books popular. Clever always, this book, however, seems intended to set
forth anything but a homely philosophy of life for the middle-class--a
kind of dainty Epicurean theory, rather--yet fails, to some degree in
this; and one can see why. A true Epicureanism aims at a complete though
harmonious development of man's entire organism. To lose the moral sense
therefore, for instance, the sense of sin and righteousness, as Mr.
Wilde's hero--his heroes are bent on doing as speedily, as completely as
they can, is to lose, or lower, organisation, to become less complex, to
pass from a higher to a lower degree of development. As a story,
however, a partly supernatural story, it is first-rate in artistic
management; those Epicurean niceties only adding to the decorative
colour of its central figure, like so many exotic flowers, like the
charming scenery and the perpetual, epigrammatic, surprising, yet so
natural, conversations, like an atmosphere all about it. All that
pleasant accessory detail, taken straight from the culture, the
intellectual and social interests, the conventionalities, of the moment,
have, in fact, after all, the effect of the better sort of realism,
throwing into relief the adroitly-devised supernatural element after the
manner of Poe, but with a grace he never reached, which supersedes that
earlier didactic purpose, and makes the quite sufficing interest of an
excellent sto