Robert Elsmere is of course a masterpiece—a masterpiece of the 'genre ennuyeux,' the one form of literature that the English people seem to thoroughly enjoy. A thoughtful young friend of ours once told us that it reminded him of the sort of conversation that goes on at a meat tea in the house of a serious Nonconformist family, and we can quite believe it. Indeed it is only in England that such a book could be produced. England is the home of lost ideas.

Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying," in his Intentions, 1891.

Walter Pater, "Robert Elsmere," in his Essays from "The Guardian," Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1901, pp. 53-70.