Some of the younger men indeed were
dazzled, but with few exceptions their appreciation was expressed in an
unfortunate manner. It is a consolation or a misfortune that the wrong
kind of people are too often correct in their prognostications of the
future; the far-seeing are also the foolish.

From these reviews which illustrate the middle period of Wilde's meteoric
career, between the aesthetic period and the production of Lady
Windermere's Fan, we learn _his_ opinion of the contemporaries who
thought little enough of him. That he revised many of these opinions,
notably those that are harsh, I need scarcely say; and after his release
from prison he lost much of his admiration for certain writers. I would
draw special attention to those reviews of Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Wilfrid
Blunt, Mr. Alfred Austin, the Hon. John Collier, Mr. Brander Matthews and
Sir Edwin Arnold, Rossetti, Pater, Henley and Morris; they have more
permanent value than the others, and are in accord with the wiser
critical judgments of to-day.

For leave to republish the articles from the Pall Mall Gazette I am
indebted to Mr. William Waldorf Astor, the owner of the copyrights, by
arrangement with whom they are here reprinted. I have to thank most
cordially Messrs. Cassell and Company for permitting me to reproduce the
editorial articles and reviews contributed by Wilde to the Woman's World;
the editor and proprietor of the Nation for leave to include the two
articles from the Speaker; and the editor of the Saturday Review for a
similar courtesy. For identifying many of the anonymous articles I am
indebted to Mr. Arthur Humphreys, not the least of his kindnesses in
assisting the publication of this edition; for the trouble of editing,
arrangement, and collecting of material I am under obligations to Mr.
Stuart Mason for which this acknowledgment is totally inadequate.

ROBERT ROSS
REFORM CLUB,
May 12th, 1908

DINNERS AND DISHES

(Pall Mall Gazette, March 7, 1885.)

A man can live for three days without bread, but no man can live for one
day without poetry, was an aphorism of Baudelaire. You can live without
pictures and music but you cannot live without eating, says the author of
Dinners and Dishes; and this latter view is, no doubt, the more popular.
Who, indeed, in these degenerate days would hesitate between an ode and
an omelette, a sonnet and a salmis? Yet the position is not entirely
Philistine; cookery is an art; are not its principles the subject of
South Kensington lectures, and does not the Royal Academy give a banquet
once a year? Besides, as the coming democracy will, no doubt, insist on
feeding us all on penny dinners, it is well that the laws of cookery
should be explained: for were the national meal burned, or badly
seasoned, or served up with the wrong sauce a dreadful revolution might
follow.

Under these circumstances we strongly recommend Dinners and Dishes to
every one: it is brief and concise and makes no attempt at eloquence,
which is extremely fortunate. For even on ortolans who could endure
oratory? It also has the advantage of not being illustrated.