THE PREFACE

    The artist
        is the creator
               of beautiful things.

    To reveal art
          and conceal the artist
        is art's aim.

    The critic is he
         who can translate
               into another manner
              or a new material
                   his impression
                 of beautiful things.

    The highest
           as the lowest form
               of criticism
        is a mode of autobiography.

    Those who find
           ugly meanings in beautiful things
        are corrupt
         without being charming.

    This is a fault.

    Those who find
           beautiful meanings in beautiful things
        are the cultivated.

    For these there is hope.

    They are the elect
      to whom beautiful things
             mean only beauty.

    There is no such thing
           as a moral
          or an immoral book.

    Books are well written,
           or badly written.

    That is all.

    The nineteenth century dislike
           of realism
        is the rage of Caliban
              seeing his own
                   face in a glass.

    The nineteenth century dislike
           of romanticism
        is the rage
               of Caliban not
              seeing his own
                   face in a glass.

    The moral life
           of man forms
         part of the subject-matter
               of the artist,
           but the morality of art
            consists in the perfect
                   use of an imperfect medium.

    No artist desires
          to prove anything.

    Even things
         that are true
            can be proved.

    No artist has ethical sympathies.

    An ethical sympathy
           in an artist
        is an
             unpardonable
                mannerism of style.

    No artist is ever morbid.

    The artist can express everything.

    Thought and language
        are to the artist instruments
               of an art.

    Vice and virtue
        are to the artist materials
               for an art.

    From the point
           of view of form,
         the type of
               all the arts
            is the art
                   of the musician.

    From the point
           of view of feeling,
         the actor's craft
            is the type.

    All art
     is at once surface
            and symbol.

    Those who
          go beneath the surface
        do so at their peril.

    Those who read the symbol
          do so at their peril.

    It is the spectator,
           and not life,
         that art really mirrors.

    Diversity of opinion
           about a work
               of art shows
         that the work is new,
           complex,
         and vital.

    When critics disagree,
           the artist
            is in accord with himself.

    We can forgive
           a man for
          making a useful thing
               as long as
         he does not admire it.

    The only excuse for
          making a useless thing is
         that one admires it intensely.

    All art is quite useless.

    OSCAR
        WILDE
 
  CHAPTER 1

    The studio
        was filled
               with the rich odour
                   of roses,
           and when the light
               summer wind
                  stirred amidst the trees
                       of the garden,
         there came
               through the open door
                   the heavy scent
                 of the lilac,
           or the more delicate perfume
               of the pink-flowering thorn.

    From the corner
           of the divan
         of Persian saddle-bags
         on which he was lying,
           smoking,
         as was his custom,
           innumerable cigarettes,
         Lord Henry Wotton
            could just
                  catch the gleam
                       of the honey-sweet
                     and honey-coloured blossoms
                           of a laburnum,
           whose tremulous branches
            seemed hardly able
                  to bear the burden
                       of a beauty so flamelike
                     as theirs;
        and now
               and then the fantastic shadows
                   of birds
               in flight
            flitted across
                   the long tussore-silk curtains
             that were
                  stretched in front
                       of the huge window,
           producing a kind
               of momentary Japanese effect,