OSCAR WILDE.
Reflection: I do know a bird, who like Oscar, with his head in the sand, still believes in the undiscovered!
If to be misunderstood is to be great, it was rash in Oscar to reveal the source of his inspirations: the “Biographical Dictionary.”
J. A. McN. W.
TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE “NATIONAL ART EXHIBITION”
The World, Nov. 17, 1886.
GENTLEMEN—I am naturally interested in any effort made among painters to prove that they are alive—but when I find, thrust in the van of your leaders, the body of my dead ’Arry, I know that putrefaction alone can result. When following ’Arry, there comes on Oscar, you finish in farce, and bring upon yourselves the scorn and ridicule of your confrères in Europe.
What has Oscar in common with Art? except that he dines at our tables, and picks from our platters the plums for the pudding he peddles in the provinces. Oscar—the amiable, irresponsible, esurient Oscar—with no more sense of a picture than of the fit of a coat, has the courage of the opinions ... of others!
With ’Arry and Oscar you have avenged the Academy.