[Illustration: PARALLEL.
Joe, the Fat Boy in Pickwick, startles the Old Lady; Oscar, the Fad
Boy in Lippincott's, startles Mrs. Grundy.
_Oscar, the Fad Boy_. "I want to make your flesh creep!"]
The Baron has read OSCAR WILDE'S Wildest and Oscarest work, called
_Dorian Gray_, a weird sensational romance, complete in one number of
_Lippincott's Magazine_. The Baron, recommends anybody who revels in
_diablerie_, to begin it about half-past ten, and to finish it at one
sitting up; but those who do not so revel he advises either not to
read it at all, or to choose the daytime, and take it in homoeopathic
doses. The portrait represents the soul of the beautiful Ganymede-like
_Dorian Gray_, whose youth and beauty last to the end, while his soul,
like JOHN BROWN'S, "goes marching on" into the Wilderness of Sin. It
becomes at last a devilled soul. And then _Dorian_ sticks a knife into
it, as any ordinary mortal might do, and a fork also, and next morning
"Lifeless but 'hideous' he lay,"
while the portrait has recovered the perfect beauty which it possessed
when it first left the artist's easel. If OSCAR intended an allegory,
the finish is dreadfully wrong. Does he mean that, by sacrificing
his earthly life, _Dorian Gray_ atones for his infernal sins, and so
purifies his soul by suicide? "Heavens! I am no preacher," says the
Baron, "and perhaps OSCAR didn't mean anything at all, except to give
us a sensation, to show how like BULWER LYTTON'S old-world style he
could make his descriptions and his dialogue, and what an easy thing
it is to frighten the respectable _Mrs. Grundy_ with a Bogie." The
style is decidedly Lyttonerary. His aphorisms are Wilde, yet forced.
Mr. OSCAR WILDE says of his story, "it is poisonous if you like, but
you cannot deny that it is also perfect, and perfection is what we
artists aim at." Perhaps; but "we artists" do not always hit what
we aim at, and, despite his confident claim to unerring artistic
marksmanship, one must hazard the opinion, that in this case Mr. WILDE
has "shot wide." There is indeed more of "poison" than of "perfection"
in _Dorian Gray_. The central idea is an excellent, if not exactly
novel, one; and a finer art, say that of NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, would
have made a striking and satisfying story of it. _Dorian Gray_ is
striking enough, in a sense, but it is not "satisfying" artistically,
any more than it is so ethically. Mr. WILDE has preferred the sensuous
and hyperdecorative manner of "Mademoiselle DE MAUPIN," and without
GAUTIER'S power, has spoilt a promising conception by clumsy unideal
treatment. His "decoration" (upon which he plumes himself) is indeed
"laid on with a trowel." The luxuriously elaborate details of his
"artistic hedonism" are too suggestive of South Kensington Museum
and æsthetic Encyclopædias. A truer art would have avoided both the
glittering conceits, which bedeck the body of the story, and the
unsavoury suggestiveness which lurks in its spirit. Poisonous! Yes.
But the loathly "leperous distilment" taints and spoils, without
in any way subserving "perfection," artistic or otherwise. If _Mrs.
Grundy_ doesn't read it, the younger _Grundies_ do; that is, the
_Grundies_ who belong to Clubs, and who care to shine in certain
sets wherein this story will be much discussed. "I have read it, and,
except for the ingenious idea, I wish to forget it," says the Baron.
* * * * *
The Baron has seen the new, lively, and eccentric newspaper, entitled
_The Whirlwind_. It has reached the third number. "I am informed,"
says the Baron, "that, on payment of five guineas down, I can become
a life-subscriber to the _Whirlwind_. But what does life-subscriber
mean? Do I subscribe for the term of my life, or for the term of the
_Whirlwind's_ life? Suppose the _Whirlwind_ has to be wound up, or
whirl-winded up, and suppose I am still going on, can I intervene to
stop the proceedings, and insist on my contract to be supplied with
a _Whirlwind_ per week for the remainder of my natural or unnatural
life being carried out? If the contract is for our lives, then, as
a life-subscriber, I should insist on the _Whirlwind_ remaining
co-existent with me, so that, up to my latest breath, I might have a
_Whirlwind_. But if the life-subscription of five guineas is only for
the term of the _Whirlwind's_ life, then, I fancy the proprietors,
editor, and staff, that the Hon. STUART ERSKINE and Mr. HERBERT
VIVIAN, who are, I believe, the Proprietors, Editor, and Staff of the
_Whirlwind_, will have by far the better of the bargain. I resist the
temptation, and keep my five pounds five shillings in my pocket, and
am
"Yours truly, THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS."
* * * * *