ABSTRACT
Rupert Hart-Davis identifies ‘Thersites’ as CharlesWhibley (1860-1930), journalist and biographer on the staff of the Scots Observer, but this seems unlikely, for Whibley himself published a letter in the journal (19 July 1890) commenting on the unsigned notice: ‘Your criticism of Dorian Gray seems to me more than fair… You find in it art and no morals; I detect in its pages lots of morality and no art.’ In the 26 July number, the writer of the notice, now identifying himself as ‘Thersites’, wrote to the editor of the Scots Observer commenting on Whibley’s letter. Wilde re-entered the debate after Whibley published another letter; the correspondence continued to fill columns of the journal through the beginning of September with further letters from Whibley and Wilde (see Letters, pp. 268-72), one from William Archer, and several from less-known letter writers. Wearied by the discussion, Wilde wrote to Arthur Conan Doyle in the spring of 1891:
The newspapers seem to me to be written by the prurient for the Philistine. I cannot understand how they can treat Dorian Gray as immoral. My difficulty was to keep the inherent moral subordinate to the artistic and dramatic effect, and it still seems to me that the moral is too obvious. (Letters, p. 292.)
Why go grubbing in muck-heaps? The world is fair, and the proportion of healthy-minded men and honest women to those that are foul, fallen, or unnatural is great. Mr. Oscar Wilde has again been writing stuff that were better unwritten; and while The Picture of Dorian Gray, which he contributes to Lippincott, is
ingenious, interesting, full of cleverness, and plainly the work of a man of letters, it is false art-for its interest is medico-legal; it is false to human nature-for its hero is a devil; it is false to morality-for it is not made sufficiently clear that the writer does not prefer a course of unnatural iniquity to a life of cleanliness, health, and sanity. The story-which deals with matters only fitted for the Criminal Investigation Department or a hearing in camera1 is discreditable alike to author and editor. Mr. Wilde has brains, and art, and style; but if he can write for none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys, the sooner he takes to tailoring (or some other decent trade) the better for his own reputation and the public morals.
