MR. OSCAR WILDE'S FAIRY TALES
It would seem to be a very difficult task to be original in fairy tales---harder, even, than in most 'walks of literature', where, as Emerson reminded us, 'everything has been said before'. To write an original story for children---which shall at the same time be readable and amusing---the author of ' Alice in Wonderland ' has, perhaps, attained nearest, ir this generation, to that ideal of perfection. But Mr. Oscar Wilde, if he echoes Hans Andersen, echoes him very pleasantly. 'These five tales are all cleverly told, and contain some pretty flights of imagination, many quaint conceits, and plenty of smart sayings. If it was Andersen's one fault that he soared occasionally above the children's heads, no one will be inclined to blame Mr. Oscar Wilde for that---for is it not the fashion of the present day to write neither exclusively for children nor for 'grownups', but for both (or neither)? The stories have 'a moral', not & la Mrs. Sherwood, but daintily hidden, for, as Mr. Wilde makes a duck say to a linnet (in a tale called 'The Devoted Friend'), 'to tell a story with a moral is always a very dangerous thing to do'. 'Every good story-teller', a waterrat goes on to inform us, 'now-a-days starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle, That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man, He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, and whenever the young man made any remark he always answered, 'Pooh!' A recipe is given for friendship in the same story, 'A true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good'. Mr, Oscar Wilde is rather severe on young ladies of the present day. Here is an extract from the first story, 'The Happy Prince': ' A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 'How wonderful the stars are;' he said to her, 'and how wonderfal is the power of love!' 'I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State ball', she answered; 'I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy. ' A student listening to a nightingale, pulls a note-book and a lead pencil out of his pocket. 'She has form', be said to himself; 'has she got feeling? Tam afraid not; in fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity... , Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice, What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good!' It would be a shame to extract any more of the plums with which this little volume is filled, The book is very prettily got up, and the illustrations are by Mr. Walter Crane and Mr. Jacomb Hood. The author of the 'Baby's Opera' is, we need not say, an ideal illustrator of fairy tales; and some of the children in Mr. Jacomb Hood's vignettes seem to have stepped out of his pretty picture in this year's Grosvenor, Indeed, if we are not mistaken, one of the vignettes is a sketch of the leading group in that composition.