ABSTRACT
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, and its three companion stories, will not add to their author’s reputation. Mr. Oscar Wilde’s previous book, though in style florid to excess, and in sentiment shallow, had at least a certain cleverness; this quality, however, is singularly absent in at least the first three of these tales. Much the best of the series is the fourth, the short sketch entitled ‘A Model Millionaire’, though even this brief tale is spoilt by such commonplace would-be witticisms as ‘the poor should be practical and prosaic’, ‘it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.’ There is much more of this commonplace padding in the story that gives its name to the book, e.g. ‘actors can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or comedy,’ &c., ‘but in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications,’ and so on, and so on, even to the painfully hackneyed ‘the world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.’ This story is an attempt to follow in the footsteps of the author of New Arabian Nights. Unfortunately for Mr. Wilde’s ambition, Mr. Stevenson is a literary artist of rare originality. Such a story as this is nothing if not wrought with scrupulous delicacy of touch. It is, unfortunately, dull as well as derivative. ‘The Sphinx without a Secret’ is better. ‘The Canterville Ghost’ is, as a story, better still, though much the same kind of thing has already been far better done by Mr. Andrew Lang; but it is disfigured by some stupid vulgarisms. ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course,language.’ ‘And manners,’ an American may be prompted to add. A single example may suffice:
The subjects discussed were merely such as form the ordinary conversation of cultured Americans of the better class, such as the immense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport over Sara Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty of obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes, and hominy, even in the best English houses…and the sweetness of the New York accent as compared to the London drawl.
