re a work which we believe to be silly and know to be
offensive, without the imputation of malice--especially when that book
is written by one who is so clearly capable of better things.

* * * * *

As for the critical question, Mr. Wilde is beating the air when he
defends idealism and "romantic art" in literature. In the words of Mrs.
Harris to Mrs. Gamp, "Who's deniging of it?"

Heaven forbid that we should refuse to an author the supreme pleasure of
realising the non-existent; or that we should judge the "aesthetic" from
the purely ethical standpoint.

No; our criticism starts from lower ground. Mr. Wilde says that his
story is a moral tale, because the wicked persons in it come to a bad
end. We will not be so rude as to quote a certain remark about morality
which one Mr. Charles Surface made to Mr. Joseph Surface. We simply say
that every critic has the right to point out that a work of art or
literature is dull and incompetent in its treatment--as "The Picture of
Dorian Gray" is, and that its dulness and incompetence are not redeemed
because it constantly hints, not obscurely, at disgusting sins and
abominable crimes--as "The Picture of Dorian Gray" does.

[8] June 26th.

* * * * *

_A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public is to
him non-existent. He has no poppied or honeyed cakes through which to
give the monster sleep or sustenance. He leaves that to the popular
novelist._

* * * * *

MR. OSCAR WILDE'S DEFENCE.

To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.[9]

Sir,--As you still keep up, though in a somewhat milder form than
before, your attacks on me and my book you not only confer upon me the
right, but you impose on me the duty of reply.

You state, in your issue of to-day, that I misrepresented you when I
said that you suggested that a book so wicked as mine should be
"suppressed and coerced by a Tory Government." Now, you did not propose
this, but you did suggest it. When you declare that you do not know
whether or not the Government will take action about my book, and remark
that the authors of books much less wicked have been proceeded against
in law, the suggestion is quite obvious.

In your complaint of misrepresentation you seem to me, Sir, to have been
not quite candid.

However, as far as I am concerned, this suggestion is of no importance.
What is of importance