SOURCE: Hale, Edward E., Jr. “Signs of Life in Literature.” Dial 17 (1 July 1894): 11-13.

In the following essay, Hale contrasts Hamlin Garland's Crumbling Idols and Wilde's Salomé, providing a mixed review of Wilde's play.

There are in Paris during the Spring of the year a good many exhibitions of pictures which trouble the soul of the conscientious lover of the arts. Not only at the two great Salons are there generally certain alarming manifestations, but there are also smaller collections gathered together by Independents, Rosicrucians, or other such persons, in which the wildest gymnastics in the name of art are not only allowed but encouraged. Dazed and antagonized by these indulgences, the feeling of many an ordinary and honest art-lover must be, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Philistine.” Fortunately, however, Paris herself furnishes an antidote to any such despair, in the annual exhibition of the pictures and...