PANIC
Truth, Jan. 16, 1890.
O TRUTH!—Cowed and humiliated, I acknowledge that our Oscar is at last original. At bay, and sublime in his agony, he certainly has, for once, borrowed from no living author, and comes out in his own true colours—as his own “gentleman.”
How shall I stand against his just anger, and his damning allegations! for it must be clear to your readers, that, besides his clean polish, as prettily set forth in his epistle, I, alas! am but the “ill-bred and ignorant person,” whose “lucubrations” “it is a trouble” for him “to notice.”
Still will I, desperate as is my condition, point out that though “impertinent,” “venomous,” and “vulgar,” he claims me as his “master”—and, in the dock, bases his innocence upon such relation between us.
In all humility, therefore, I admit that the outcome of my “silly vanity and incompetent mediocrity,” must be the incarnation: “Oscar Wilde.”
J. A. McN. WHISTLER.