's science. Are we then to suppose that Mr. Oscar Wilde
has yielded to the craving for a notoriety which he once earned by
talking fiddle faddle about other men's art, and sees his only chance of
recalling it by making himself obvious at the cost of being obnoxious,
and by attracting the notice which the olfactory sense cannot refuse to
the presence of certain self-asserting organisms? That is an
uncharitable hypothesis, and we would gladly abandon it. It may be
suggested (but is it more charitable?) that he derives pleasure from
treating a subject merely because it is disgusting. The phenomenon is
not unknown in recent literature; and it takes two forms, in appearance
widely separate--in fact, two branches from the same root, a root which
draws its life from malodorous putrefaction. One development is found in
the Puritan prurience which produced Tolstoi's "Kreutzer Sonata" and Mr.
Stead's famous outbursts. That is odious enough and mischievous enough,
and it is rightly execrated, because it is tainted with an hypocrisy not
the less culpable because charitable persons may believe it to be
unconscious. But is it more odious or more mischievous than the "frank
Paganism" (that is the word, is it not?) which delights in dirtiness and
confesses its delight? Still they are both chips from the same
block--"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" and "The Picture of Dorian
Gray"--and both of them ought to be chucked into the fire. Not so much
because they are dangerous and corrupt (they are corrupt but not
dangerous) as because they are incurably silly, written by simple
_poseurs_ (whether they call themselves Puritan or Pagan) who know
nothing about the life which they affect to have explored, and because
they are mere catchpenny revelations of the non-existent, which, if they
reveal anything at all, are revelations only of the singularly
unpleasant minds from which they emerge.

[4] _St. James's Gazette_, June 24th, 1890.

[5] Pp. 16, 17.

[6] p. 19.

* * * * *

_Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to
limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?_

* * * * *

MR. WILDE'S BAD CASE.

To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.[7]

Sir,--I have read your criticism of my story, "The Picture of Dorian
Gray," and I need hardly say that I do not propose to discuss its merits
and demerits, its personalities or it