Much of this book is wittier even than Congreve and on an equal intellectual level: at length, it seems to me, you have justified yourself." Half an hour later I was told that Oscar Wilde had called.

I went down immediately to see him.

He was bubbling over with content.
"How charming of you, Frank," he cried, "to have written me such a divine letter." "I have only read a hundred pages of the book," I said; "but they are delightful: no one now can deny you a place among the wittiest and most humorous writers in English." "How wonderful of you, Frank; what do you like so much ?" Like all artists, he loved praise and I was enthusiastic, happy to have the opportunity of making up for some earlier doubting that now seemed unworthy: "Whatever the envious may say, you're with Burke and Sheridan, among the very ablest Irishmen....
"Of course I have heard most of the epigrams from you before, but you have put them even better in this book." "Do you think so, really ?" he asked, smiling with pleasure.
It is worth notice that some of the epigrams in "Dorian Gray" were bettered again before they appeared in his first play.

For example, in "Dorian Gray" Lord Henry Wotton, who is peculiarly Oscar's mouthpiece, while telling how he had to bargain for a piece of old brocade in Wardour Street, adds, "nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." In "Lady Windermere's Fan" the same epigram is perfected, "The cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." Nearly all the literary productions of our time suffer from haste: one must produce a good deal, especially while one's reputation is in the making, in order to live by one's pen.

Yet great works take time to form, and fine creations are often disfigured by the stains of hurried parturition.