Vol. I. Page 80 Line 3. I demur¹ very much to your statement in this paragraph. Wilde was too much of a student of Greek to have learned anything about controversy² from Whistler. No doubt Whistler was more nimble and more naturally gifted with the power of repartee³, but when Wilde indulged in controversy with his critics, whether he got the best of it or not, he never borrowed the Whistlerian method. Cf. his controversy with Henley over Dorian Gray.

Then whatever you may think of Ruskin, Wilde learnt a great deal about the History and Philosophy of Art from him. He learned more from Pater and he was the friend and intimate of Burne–Jones long before he knew Whistler. I quite agree with your remark that he had “no joy in conflict” and no doubt he had little or no knowledge of the technique of Art in the modern expert’s sense.

[There never was a greater master of controversy than Whistler, and I believe Wilde borrowed his method of making fun of the adversary⁴. Robert Ross’s second point is rather controversial. Shaw agrees with me that Wilde never knew anything really of music or of painting and neither the history nor the so-called philosophy of art makes one a connoisseur⁵ of contemporary masters. F.H.]

Page 94. Last line. For “happy candle” read “Happy Lamp.” It was at the period when oil lamps were put in the middle of the dinner table just before the general introduction of electric light; by putting “candle” you lose the period. Cf. Du Maurier’s pictures of dinner parties in Punch.

Page 115. I venture to think that you should state that Wilde at the end of his story of ‘Mr. W.H.’ definitely says that the theory is all nonsense. It always appeared to me a semi-satire of Shakespearean commentary. I remember Wilde saying to me after it was published that his next Shakespearean book would be a discussion as to whether the commentators⁶ on Hamlet were mad or only pretending to be. I think you take Wilde’s phantasy too seriously but I am not disputing whether you are right or wrong in your opinion of it; but it strikes me as a little solemn when on Page 116 you say that the ‘whole theory is completely mistaken’; but you are quite right when you say that it did Wilde a great deal of harm. [Ross does not seem to realise that if the theory were merely fantastic the public might be excused for

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