o., we do not know; but on the whole we hope they will not.

The puzzle is that a young man of decent parts, who enjoyed (when he was
at Oxford), the opportunity of associating with gentlemen, should put
his name (such as it is) to so stupid and vulgar a piece of work. Let
nobody read it in the hope of finding witty paradox or racy wickedness.
The writer airs his cheap research among the garbage of the French
_Decadents_ like any drivelling pedant, and he bores you unmercifully
with his prosy rigmaroles about the beauty of the Body and the
corruption of the Soul. The grammar is better than Ouida's; the
erudition equal: but in every other respect we prefer the talented lady
who broke off with "pious aposiopesis" when she touched upon "the
horrors which are described in the pages of Suetonius and Livy"--not to
mention the yet worse infamies believed by many scholars to be
accurately portrayed in the lost works of Plutarch, Venus, and
Nicodemus, especially Nicodemus.

Let us take one peep at the young men in Mr. Oscar Wilde's story. Puppy
No. 1 is the painter of the picture of Dorian Gray; Puppy No. 2 is the
critic (a courtesy lord, skilled in all the knowledge of the Egyptians
and aweary of all the sins and pleasures of London); Puppy No. 3 is the
original, cultivated by Puppy No. 1 with a "romantic friendship". The
Puppies fall a-talking: Puppy No. 1 about his art, Puppy No. 2 about his
sins and pleasures and the pleasures of sin, and Puppy No. 3 about
himself--always about himself, and generally about his face, which is
"brainless and beautiful". The Puppies appear to fill up the intervals
of talk by plucking daisies and playing with them, and sometimes by
drinking "something with strawberry in it." The youngest Puppy is told
that he is charming; but he mustn't sit in the sun for fear of spoiling
his complexion. When he is rebuked for being a naughty, wilful boy, he
makes a pretty _moue_--this man of twenty! This is how he is addressed
by the Blase Puppy at their first meeting:

"Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give
they quickly take away.... When your youth goes, your beauty will go
with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs
left for you.... Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies
and roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.
You will suffer horribly."[5]

Why, bless our souls! haven't we read something of this kind so