Truth, Jan. 16, 1890.
O TRUTH!――Cowed and humiliated, I acknowledge that our Oscar is at
last original. At bay, and sublime in his agony, he certainly has, for
once, borrowed from no living author, and comes out in his own true
colours――as his own “gentleman.”
How shall I stand against his just anger, and his damning allegations!
for it must be clear to your readers, that, besides his clean polish,
as prettily set forth in his epistle, I, alas! am but the “ill-bred and
ignorant person,” whose “lucubrations” “it is a trouble” for him “to
notice.”
Still will I, desperate as is my condition, point out that though
“impertinent,” “venomous,” and “vulgar,” he claims me as his
“master”――and, in the dock, bases his innocence upon such relation
between us.
In all humility, therefore, I admit that the outcome of my “silly
vanity and incompetent mediocrity,” must be the incarnation: “OSCAR
WILDE.”
J. A. McN. WHISTLER.
_Mea culpa!_ the Gods may perhaps forgive and forget.
To you, _Truth_――champion of the truth――I leave the brave task of
proclaiming again that the story of the lecture to the students of the
Royal Academy was, as I told it to you, no fiction.
In the presence of Mr Waldo Story did Oscar make his prayer for
preparation; and at his table was he entrusted with the materials for
his crime.
You also shall again unearth, in the _Nineteenth Century Review_ of
Jan. 1889, page 37, the other appropriated property, slily stowed away,
in an article on “The Decay of Lying”――though why Decay!
To shirk this matter thus is craven, doubtless; but I am awe-stricken
and tremble, for truly, “the rage of the sheep is terrible!”
J. A. McN. WHISTLER.