Allow me, Sir, to reassure, on this point, not merely Mr. Charles Whibley himself but also your, no doubt, anxious readers.  I have no hesitation in saying that I regard such criticisms as a very gratifying tribute to my story.  For if a work of art is rich, and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson.  It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.  It will be to each man what he is himself.  It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

And so in the case of Dorian Gray the purely literary critic, as in the Speaker and elsewhere, regards it as a ‘serious’ and ‘fascinating’ work of art:  the critic who deals with art in its relation to conduct, as the Christian Leader and the Christian World, regards it as an ethical parable:  Light, which I am told is the organ of the English mystics, regards it as a work of high spiritual import; the St. James’s Gazette, which is seeking apparently to be the organ of the prurient, sees or pretends to see in it all kinds of dreadful things, and hints at Treasury prosecutions; and your Mr. Charles Whibley genially says that he discovers in it ‘lots of morality.’

It is quite true that he goes on to say that he detects no art in it.  But I do not think that it is fair to expect a critic to be able to see a work of art from every point of view.  Even Gautier had his limitations just as much as Diderot had, and in modern England Goethes are rare.  I can only assure Mr. Charles Whibley that no moral apotheosis to which he has added the most modest contribution could possibly be a source of unhappiness to an artist.—­I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

Oscar Wilde.

16 Tite street, Chelsea, July 1890.

VIII.

(Scots Observer, August 16, 1890.)

To the Editor of the Scots Observer.

Sir,—­I am afraid I cannot enter into any newspaper discussion on the subject of art with Mr. Whibley, partly because the writing of letters is always a trouble to me, and partly because I regret to say that I do not know what qualifications Mr. Whibley possesses for the discussion of so important a topic.  I merely noticed his letter because, I am sure without in any way intending it, he made a suggestion about myself personally that was quite inaccurate.  His suggestion was that it must have been painful to me to find that a certain section of the public, as represented by himself and the critics of some religious publications, had insisted on finding what he calls ‘lots of morality’ in my story of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Being naturally desirous of setting your readers right on a question of such vital interest to the historian, I took the opportunity of pointing out in your columns that I regarded all such criticisms as a very gratifying tribute to the ethical beauty of the story, and I added that I was quite ready to recognise that it was not really fair to ask of any ordinary critic that he should be able to appreciate a work of art from every point of view.