Indulgence
Sir : Hans Keller's assertion that the British cultural elite is hostile to homosexuality and tends to denigrate the work of homosexual artists stands truth on its head. The British cultural elite is so nervously anxious to show itself superior to vulgar prejudices that it treats homosexual artists with an indulgence it seldom allows to heterosexuals.
If Oscar Wilde had sexually exploited working-class girls, instead of boys, he would certainly be remembered not as a holy martyr, but as a humbug, a selfish lecher, and a male chauvinist pig. Also as a very affected and dated writer.
The British artists who are undervalued in Britain are usually those whose sex lives are blamelessly conventional, such as Walter Scott—accepted without question as a genius of the first rank in every civilised country except his own, where far more attention and praise is given to the likes of Lytton Strachey, Norman Douglas, and Frederick Rolfe! It might be amusing to forge evidence that Scott was a secret homosexual (or a repressed sadist, or latently incestuous), then sit back and watch his reputation take off like a rocket. D. Watkins `Gaycroft,' Laleston, Bridgend, Glamorgan
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