tes that he regards the expression 'complete' as applied to a story,
as a specimen of the 'adjectival exuberance of the puffer.' Here, it
seems to me, he sadly exaggerates. What my story is is an interesting
problem. What my story is not is a 'novelette'--a term which you have
more than once applied to it. There is no such word in the English
language as novelette. It should not be used. It is merely part of the
slang of Fleet Street.

In another part of your paper, Sir, you state that I received your
assurance of the lack of malice in your critic 'somewhat grudgingly.'
This is not so. I frankly said that I accepted that assurance 'quite
readily,' and that your own denial and that of your own critic were
'sufficient.'

Nothing more generous could have been said. What I did feel was that you
saved your critic from the charge of malice by convicting him of the
unpardonable crime of lack of literary instinct. I still feel that. To
call my book an ineffective attempt at allegory, that in the hands of Mr.
Anstey might have been made striking, is absurd.

Mr. Anstey's sphere in literature and my sphere are different.

You then gravely ask me what rights I imagine literature possesses. That
is really an extraordinary question for the editor of a newspaper such as
yours to ask. The rights of literature, Sir, are the rights of
intellect.

I remember once hearing M. Renan say that he would sooner live under a
military despotism than under the despotism of the Church, because the
former merely limited the freedom of action, while the latter limited the
freedom of mind.

You say that a work of art is a form of action. It is not. It is the
highest mode of thought.

In conclusion, Sir, let me ask you not to force on me this continued
correspondence by daily attacks. It is a trouble and a nuisance.

As you assailed me first, I have a right to the last word. Let that last
word be the present letter, and leave my book, I beg you, to the
immortality that it deserves.--I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

OSCAR WILDE.

16 TITE STREET, S.W., June 28.

V. 'DORIAN GRAY'

(Daily Chronicle, July 2, 1890.)

To the Editor of the Daily Chronicle.

SIR,--Will you allow me to correct some errors into which your critic has
fallen in his review of my story, The Picture of Dorian Gray, published
in today's issue of your paper?

Your critic states, to begin with, that I make desperate attempts to
'vamp up' a mor