Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/139

 you know, paradox-making as only a sport or game quite harmless. It is not necessary to go into any long discussion of Wilde’s merit as a poet or novelist. There is no denying that he was one of the most unique figures of the modern age; and his being an English writer of third rate makes us at once intimate and familiar, as we are only third rate human beings at our best. Rh