The Sunday Times - Sunday, April 14, 1895

PERSONAL.

Oscar Wilde has been much boomed as a writer of "smart" things, but in the little list of titbits which have obtained publication there are many lines that would not be rated clever if from the pen of an unknown writer, and others having no just claim to be classed as original. It has been said of him by an unfriendly but perhaps not untruthful English critic, that he displayed greater ability in picking up and adapting the good things of others—the unconsidered trifles of club gossip—rather than in manufacturing himself. However that may be, it is an interesting fact that his quarrel with his one-time friend and confidante, Whistler, the artist, was over what amounted to an accusation of this kind. The story goes that McNeill Whistler said a very "good thing" at a dinner party at which Oscar Wilde was also present. "I would like to have said that, James," said Oscar in tones of the profoundest admiration. "You will say it, Oscar," said James quietly, but oh, so cuttingly. That broke up the intimacy.