WILDE v WHISTLER Four hundred copies on small quarto paper, and one hundred large paper copies on demy octavo paper, have been printed of this brochure. WILDE v WHISTLER BEING AN ACRIMONIOUS CORRESPONDENCE ON ART BETWEEN OSCAR WILDE AND JAMES A McNEILL WHISTLER LONDON PRIVATELY PRINTED MCMVI Mr WHISTLER’S TEN O’CLOCK, BY MR OSCAR WILDE. “_RENGAINES!_” Pall Mall Gazette, Feb. 21st, 1885. Last night at Prince’s Hall, Mr. Whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on Art, and spoke for more than an hour with really marvellous eloquence on the absolute uselessness of all lectures of the kind. Mr. Whistler began his lecture with a very pretty _aria_ on pre-historic history, describing how in earlier times hunter and warrior would go forth to chase and foray, while the artist sat at home making cup and bowl for their service. Rude imitations of nature they were first, like the gourd bottle, till the sense of beauty and form developed, and, in all its exquisite proportions, the first vase was fashioned. Then came a higher civilisation of Architecture and Arm-chairs, and with exquisite design, and dainty diaper, the useful things of Life were made lovely: and the hunter and the warrior lay on the couch when they were tired, and, when they were thirsty, drank from the bowl, and never cared to lose the exquisite proportions of the one, or the delightful ornament of the other: and this attitude of the primitive anthropophagous Philistine formed the text of the lecture, and was the attitude which Mr Whistler entreated his audience to adopt towards Art. Remembering, no doubt, many charming invitations to wonderful private views, this fashionable assemblage seemed somewhat aghast, and not a little amused, at being told that the slightest appearance among a civilized people of any joy in beautiful things is a grave impertinence to all painters; but Mr. Whistler was relentless, and with charming ease, and much grace of manner, explained to the public that the only thing they should cultivate was ugliness, and that on their permanent stupidity rested all the hopes of art in the future.