IV.  (St. James’s Gazette, June 30, 1890.)

To the Editor of the St. James’s Gazette.

SIR,—In your issue of this evening you publish a letter from ‘A London Editor’ which clearly insinuates in the last paragraph that I have in some way sanctioned the circulation of an expression of opinion, on the part of the proprietors of Lippincott’s Magazine, of the literary and artistic value of my story of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Allow me, Sir, to state that there are no grounds for this insinuation.  I was not aware that any such document was being circulated; and I have written to the agents, Messrs. Ward and Lock—who cannot, I feel sure, be primarily responsible for its appearance—to ask them to withdraw it at once.  No publisher should ever express an opinion of the value of what he publishes.  That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide.

I must admit, as one to whom contemporary literature is constantly submitted for criticism, that the only thing that ever prejudices me against a book is the lack of literary style; but I can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher.  A publisher is simply a useful middleman.  It is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism.

I may, however, while expressing my thanks to the ‘London Editor’ for drawing my attention to this, I trust, purely American method of procedure, venture to differ from him in one of his criticisms.  He states that he regards the expression ‘complete’ as applied to a story, as a specimen of the ‘adjectival exuberance of the puffer.’  Here, it seems to me, he sadly exaggerates.  What my story is is an interesting problem.  What my story is not is a ‘novelette’—a term which you have more than once applied to it.  There is no such word in the English language as novelette.  It should not be used.  It is merely part of the slang of Fleet Street.

In another part of your paper, Sir, you state that I received your assurance of the lack of malice in your critic ‘somewhat grudgingly.’  This is not so.  I frankly said that I accepted that assurance ‘quite readily,’ and that your own denial and that of your own critic were ‘sufficient.’

Nothing more generous could have been said.  What I did feel was that you saved your critic from the charge of malice by convicting him of the unpardonable crime of lack of literary instinct.  I still feel that.  To call my book an ineffective attempt at allegory, that in the hands of Mr. Anstey might have been made striking, is absurd.

Mr. Anstey’s sphere in literature and my sphere are different.

You then gravely ask me what rights I imagine literature possesses.  That is really an extraordinary question for the editor of a newspaper such as yours to ask.  The rights of literature, Sir, are the rights of intellect.

I remember once hearing M. Renan say that he would sooner live under a military despotism than under the despotism of the Church, because the former merely limited the freedom of action, while the latter limited the freedom of mind.

You say that a work of art is a form of action.  It is not.  It is the highest mode of thought.

In conclusion, Sir, let me ask you not to force on me this continued correspondence by daily attacks.  It is a trouble and a nuisance.

As you assailed me first, I have a right to the last word.  Let that last word be the present letter, and leave my book, I beg you, to the immortality that it deserves.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

OSCAR WILDE.

16 TITE STREET, S.W., June 28.

V.  ‘DORIAN GRAY’

(Daily Chronicle, July 2, 1890.)

To the Editor of the Daily Chronicle.

SIR,—Will you allow me to correct some errors into which your critic has fallen in his review of my story, The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in today’s issue of your paper?

Your critic states, to begin with, that I make desperate attempts to ‘vamp up’ a moral in my story.  Now, I must candidly confess that I do not know what ‘vamping’ is.  I see, from time to time, mysterious advertisements in the newspapers about ‘How to Vamp,’ but what vamping really means remains a mystery to me—a mystery that, like all other mysteries, I hope some day to explore.

However, I do not propose to discuss the absurd terms used by modern journalism.  What I want to say is that, so far from wishing to emphasise any moral in my story, the real trouble I experienced in writing the story was that of keeping the extremely obvious moral subordinate to the artistic and dramatic effect.

When I first conceived the idea of a young man selling his soul in exchange for eternal youth—an idea that is old in the history of literature, but to which I have given new form—I felt that, from an æsthetic point of view, it would be difficult to keep the moral in its proper secondary place; and even now I do not feel quite sure that I have been able to do so.  I think the moral too apparent.  When the book is published in a volume I hope to correct this defect.

As for what the moral is, your critic states that it is this—that when a man feels himself becoming ‘too angelic’ he should rush out and make a ‘beast of himself.’  I cannot say that I consider this a moral.  The real moral of the story is that all excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its punishment, and this moral is so far artistically and deliberately suppressed that it does not enunciate its law as a general principle, but realises itself purely in the lives of individuals, and so becomes simply a dramatic element in a work of art, and not the object of the work of art itself.

Your critic also falls into error when he says that Dorian Gray, having a ‘cool, calculating, conscienceless character,’ was inconsistent when he destroyed the picture of his own soul, on the ground that the picture did not become less hideous after he had done what, in his vanity, he had considered his first good action.  Dorian Gray has not got a cool, calculating, conscienceless character at all.  On the contrary, he is extremely impulsive, absurdly romantic, and is haunted all through his life by an exaggerated sense of conscience which mars his pleasures for him and warns him that youth and enjoyment are not everything in the world.  It is finally to get rid of the conscience that had dogged his steps from year to year that he destroys the picture; and thus in his attempt to kill conscience Dorian Gray kills himself.

Your critic then talks about ‘obtrusively cheap scholarship.’  Now, whatever a scholar writes is sure to display scholarship in the distinction of style and the fine use of language; but my story contains no learned or pseudo-learned discussions, and the only literary books that it alludes to are books that any fairly educated reader may be supposed to be acquainted with, such as the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, or Gautier’s Emaux et Camées.  Such books as Le Conso’s Clericalis Disciplina belong not to culture, but to curiosity.  Anybody may be excused for not knowing them.

Finally, let me say this—the æsthetic movement produced certain curious colours, subtle in their loveliness and fascinating in their almost mystical tone.  They were, and are, our reaction against the crude primaries of a doubtless more respectable but certainly less cultivated age.  My story is an essay on decorative art.  It reacts against the crude brutality of plain realism.  It is poisonous if you like, but you cannot deny that it is also perfect, and perfection is what we artists aim at.—I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, OSCAR WILDE.

16 TITE STREET, June 30.