Class ^tJtXA/^ 
 Book ^O 15 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
f 
 
 
EPIGRAMS 
 APHORISMS 
 
 By Oscar Wilde 
 
 1905: JOHN W. LUCE 
 AND COMPANY, BOSTON 
 
Copyright 1905 
 By John W. Luce &* Company 
 
 ^<> 
 
 I LIBRARY or aONQHEss) 
 Two Copies rtece<¥««j 
 
 MAY 13 ly05 
 
 I .Oooyri£iit tiiiry 
 Cu^ss <C AAc. «w 
 COPY 8. 
 
 fe. &. &. 
 
 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. 
 
<'<'^T^HE book of life be- 
 gins with a man and 
 a woman in a garden. 
 It ends with Revelations T 
 
 I 
 
Selected from 
 
 The Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
 An Ideal Husband 
 
 Lady Windemere^s Fan 
 
 The Importance of Being Earnest 
 
 A Woman of No Importance 
 
 Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young 
 
 Oscariana 
 
 The Canterville Ghost 
 
 The Decay of Lying 
 
 The Soul of Man under Socialism 
 
 The Critic as Artist 
 
 The Credo 
 
 UEnvoi 
 
 The English Renaissance of Art 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 y/N epigram is the sublimate of genius. It 
 yj is a crystallization from the commonplace. 
 In its earliest form, indeed, it was but a 
 mere writing upon a wall, but the modern epigram 
 is distinguished by its particular brilliancy. It em- 
 bodies the very quintessence of the thoughts of the 
 writer. The early Greek epigram did not aim at 
 wit, or necessarily produce the feeling of surprise, 
 which are essential characteristics of the modern 
 one. The writer to-day who follows the Greek 
 epigrammatist succeeds only in being dull. 
 
 Chief among our English epigrammatists of 
 modern days is that picturesque figure, Oscar 
 O^Flahertie Wills Wilde. The London Athe- 
 ncBum, indeed, spoke of him as one whose writ- 
 ings would soon be found only on the shelves of 
 the collector of the merely curious. But the Athe- 
 ncEum, like the great public it represents, notoriously 
 modifies its opinions. What Mr. Wilde wrote is 
 subject, not now, but hereafter, to final judgment, 
 when we have reached the right point from which 
 to observe it. A literary work, like sculpture, needs 
 a proper perspective. 
 
IV 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Whatever may he thought oj the writings of Oscar 
 Wilde as a ivhole, it is certain that in his epigrams 
 and aphorisms we have the very flower and blos- 
 som of his genius. Just as Rochefoucauld put 
 together the best of his own ideas and adaptations 
 of the thoughts of the ancients in his " Maxims^\' 
 as Franklin voiced the practical wisdom of his time 
 in the sayings of ^'Poor Richard''^; as Chateau- 
 briand established for Joiibert permanent fame in 
 the ^'Pensees,^^ so in this compilation the literary 
 genius of Oscar Wilde is revealed as in no other 
 way, and we may trace, through his writings, the 
 gradual evolution from palpable insincerity and striv- 
 ing for effect, to conscious truth and literary expres- 
 sion for the sake of the idea conveyed rather than 
 for the expression's sake. Flippancy, lightness 
 of touch, dilettantism, were, after all, only masks 
 worn for the time, although the wearer himself 
 was conscious only of the impression created by 
 the mask, forgetting there was, nevertheless, some- 
 thing behind the mask which gave it the appear- 
 ance of life. Under the insouciance there was 
 something real, something tangible — a message 
 conveyed to those who were capable of receiving it, 
 although in this strenuous life of the Twentieth 
 Century, 7iine-tenths of the world receives its mes- 
 sages only over the tape of the stock market. 
 
INTRODUCTION v 
 
 It is a thankless task, in a sordid age, to preach 
 the gospel of beauty. It is like trying to describe the 
 coloring of an orchid to a sightless child. Perhaps 
 it may not fully accord with the ideas of the cesthetes 
 of whom Mr. Wilde was the recognized head to 
 speak of a gospel of beauty, for it was one of his 
 favorite apothegms that ^^ Beauty cannot be taught; 
 only revealed.'''' We may question, although not 
 with the ribald levity of the heavily-humorous editor 
 of Punch, whether the most conspicuous figure in 
 the (Esthetic movement in England was sincere or 
 speaking merely for effect. But that there was an 
 undercurrent of sincerity as well as cleverness in 
 his writings, and in the school which he represented, 
 is not to be doubted for a moment by one who is sin- 
 cere. When he said that "to disagree with three- 
 fourths of England on all points is one of the first 
 elements of sanity,^' he knew the penalty he was to 
 pay, but he did not shrink from it. He himself 
 possessed those three things which he said the Eng- 
 lish public would never forgive in the Pre-Raphael- 
 ites — youth, power, and enthusiasm. And the 
 English public, sometimes in good-natured fun, as 
 with the Archibald Grosvenor of "Patience,''^ and 
 sometimes in the bitterest of malice, as with the 
 Lambert Streyke of "The Colonel,''^ proceeded to 
 attack Mr. Wilde with ridicule. The Boston public. 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 represented by shallow- pated students who revealed 
 a lack of good-breeding by insulting him on the 
 lecture platform, took its cue from these detractors. 
 Yet there were those who saw the thing as it was, 
 and while they doubted the good- faith of the esthetic 
 leader, they saw that there was something more than 
 superficiality in this recrudescence of Pre-Raphael- 
 itism. For the fact remains, that in spite of the 
 exuberant word-painting of Mr. Wilde and his 
 tendency to lackadaisical expression in his earlier 
 writings, his genius is undeniable, and the bril- 
 liancy which flashes out from page after page of 
 his poems and dramas is that of the diamond, and 
 no fading fire of a literary will-o^-the-wisp. The 
 only form of literary expression which cannot be 
 silenced by ridicule is that which covers a vital 
 truth; and the fact that Mr. Wilde^s work is better 
 appreciated to-day than when it was written is the 
 surest proof that it embodies such truth. 
 
 It was the (Esthetic movement led by him that 
 gave a new impulse to the recognition of the sepa- 
 rate realm of the imagination. The poet does not 
 always express his own ideas or his own emotions, 
 and there was much in the movement itself which 
 is no reflection of Mr. Wilde's ideas, but of that uner- 
 ring sense of beauty which characterized Keats, and 
 of which we find something in Swinburne. As an 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 outcome of that movement we have been brought 
 to recognize that many of our houses are unbeautiful, 
 our furniture is inartistic, our models of design are 
 not the best, and that a noble drama is impossible 
 without a noble public. These are not new things, 
 but it takes a long time to learn some old things. In 
 impressing these truths upon the public Mr. Wilde 
 performed a public service. No reader of "The 
 English Renaissance of ArV^ can fail to be im- 
 pressed by the fact that there is something besides ver- 
 bal cleverness in it; it contains those germs of truth 
 which instantly find lodgment in a fertile mind and 
 become themselves stimulating and creative. There 
 is more than a mere trick in the writing of such sen- 
 tences as these. There is not only the subtle play of 
 wit, and a command of language in which the words 
 are used to clothe the thought as rich draperies are 
 wrapped around a beautiful figure, but there is 
 permanent and enduring truth behind the words. 
 
 It must be remembered by the reader that these 
 lines were written by Mr. Wilde before he passed 
 through the emotional "Sturm und Drang" which 
 is revealed in his posthumous work, and that he 
 confesses, in that remarkable human document, that 
 he was only amusing himself when he wrote them. 
 But it is well known to psychologists that confes- 
 sions often reveal what is not true, and others than 
 
via INTRODUCTION 
 
 Savonarola have recanted. The man who makes 
 a concession states what he believes, in the peculiar 
 mental condition which leads to the confession, 
 to be true. But in another mental state he recog- 
 nizes, or another may recognize, that the confession 
 is merely an utter self-abasement. There was, 
 undoubtedly, something of the poseur in all that Mr. 
 Wilde published in his lifetime, and there can also 
 be no question that in majiy of these epigrams he 
 was merely aiming at an effect — he was something 
 of a cynic, with a sneer for social conventionalities 
 which he would replace with other conventionalities. 
 But this spendthrift of his own genius could not 
 escape giving utterance to truths, whatever may 
 have been his aim. In the epigrams from "The 
 Soul of Man Under Socialism^ ^ we find him, in 
 spite of his confession that he was dissimulating, a 
 thorough Republican ; not a revolutionist, but a 
 patience- preaching believer in the gospel of Democ- 
 racy and the right of the people to govern themselves. 
 Surely this was worth while. In his address in 
 New York — doubtless the best expression which 
 has ever been given to the doctrines of cestheticism • — 
 there is a noble, calm, clear and self-contained 
 logic, which, whatever its purpose, is convincing. 
 Enough that he wrote these things, and we may for- 
 give his purpose when we recognize the lesson 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 which they contain for art and literature and the 
 drama in America. 
 
 It is good to know good work, as well as to do 
 good work. In this country, at least, the name of 
 Oscar Wilde is known to thousands who have not 
 read his books or seen his plays — books and 
 plays which have been ignored by some because 
 they defied convention, by others because they were 
 "too busy,'''' a synonym, in many cases, for mental 
 laziness. Heavy-witted people who cannot under- 
 stand that the rapier, in the hands of a master, is 
 quite as effective a weapon as a bludgeon, have 
 ignored these writings altogether. Yet the work 
 of this master of modern epigram is deserving of 
 attention, not only for its literary form and the mes- 
 sage it conveys to the receptive intellect, but because 
 it is an audacious manifestation of a peculiar 
 genius. Out of these writings has been picked a 
 handful of gems which show the author as an artist 
 and which must surely lead to a better comprehen- 
 sion of his genius. Accepting his posthumous 
 confession, it is possible to reverse the dictum of 
 the head of this cesthetic school, and postulate that 
 if "It is with the best intentions that the worst 
 work is done,''^ good work may also be done with 
 the worst intentions. 
 Boston, April, 1905. GEORGE HENRY SARGENT. 
 
T^he Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
THERE is only one thing in the world worse 
 than being talked about, and that is not 
 being talked about. 
 
 Young men want to be faithful and are not, 
 old men want to be faithless and cannot. 
 
 Punctuality is the thief of time. 
 
 One should never make one's debut with a 
 scandal, one should reserve that to give interest 
 to one's old age. 
 
 The only way a woman can ever reform a man 
 is by boring him so completely that he loses all 
 possible mterest in life. 
 
 With an evening coat and a white tie, even a 
 stock broker can gain a reputation for being 
 civilized. 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 One can always be kind to people one cares 
 nothing about. 
 
 ^-"Men marry because they are tired, women be- 
 cause they are curious; both are disappointed. 
 
 Conscience and cowardice are really the same 
 things. Conscience is the trade-name of the 
 firm. 
 
 Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friend- 
 ship, and it is the best ending for one. 
 
 I choose my friends for their good looks, my 
 acquaintances for their characters, and my enemies 
 for their brains. 
 
 The value of an idea has nothing whatever to 
 do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. 
 
 It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. 
 
 To become the spectator of one's own life is to 
 escape the suffering of life. 
 
 [12] 
 
The Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
 People who love once in their lives are really 
 shallow people. What they call their loyalty 
 and their fidelity is either the lethargy of custom or 
 lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emo- 
 tional life what constancy is to the intellectual 
 life, simply a confession of failure. 
 
 Poets know how useful passion is for publica- 
 tion. Nowadays a broken heart will run to 
 many editions. 
 
 Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That ac- 
 counts for the fact that we all take such pains to 
 over-educate ourselves. 
 
 "^ Women have no appreciation of good looks. 
 At least, good women have not. 
 
 There is no such thing as good influence. All 
 influence is immoral — immoral from the scientific 
 point of view. 
 
 Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just 
 as nothing can cure senses but the soul. 
 
 [13] 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 When one is in love one begins by deceiving 
 oneself, one ends by deceiving others. That 
 is vi^hat the world calls romance. 
 
 There is something infinitely mean about 
 other people's tragedies. 
 
 Women are charmingly artificial, but they have 
 no sense of art. 
 
 — ^We live in an age when only unnecessary 
 things are absolutely necessary to us. 
 
 Experience is of no ethical value, it is simply 
 the name we give our mistakes. It demonstrates 
 that the future will be the same as the past. 
 
 Anybody can be good in the country. There 
 are no temptations there. That is the reason 
 why people who live out of town are so uncivilized. 
 There are only two ways of becoming civilized. 
 One is by being cultured, the other is by being 
 corrupt. Country people have no opportunity 
 of being either, so they stagnate. 
 
 [14] 
 
The Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
 The fatality of good resolutions is that they 
 are always too late. 
 
 There is luxury in self-reproach. When we 
 blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to 
 blame us. 
 
 The worst of having a romance is that it leaves 
 one so unromantic. 
 
 When a woman finds out that her husband is 
 absolutely indifferent to her she either becomes 
 dreadfully dowdy or wears very smart bonnets 
 that some other woman's husband has to pay for. 
 
 Beauty is a form of Genius — is higher indeed, 
 than Genius, as it needs no explanation. People 
 say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial, 
 but at least it is not so superficial as thought. It 
 is only shallow people who do not judge by 
 appearances. 
 
 The commonest thing is delightful if one only 
 hides it. 
 
 [15] 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 The one charm of marriage is that it makes a 
 life of deception necessary for both parties. 
 
 I can beHeve anything, provided it is incredible. 
 
 Good artists give everything to their art and 
 consequently are perfectly uninteresting them- 
 selves. 
 
 When we think that we are experimenting on 
 others, we are really experimenting on ourselves. 
 
 Those who are faithful know the pleasures of 
 love ; it is the faithftti who know love's tragedies. 
 
 Never trust a woman who wears mauve or a 
 woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink 
 ribbons. It means they have a history. 
 
 It is personality not principles that move the 
 age. 
 
 Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid 
 thing it is always from the noblest motive. 
 
 [i6] 
 
The Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
 --T^There is hardly a person in the House of Com- 
 mons worth painting, though many of them would 
 be better for a little whitewashing. 
 
 The reason we all like to think so well of others 
 is that we are all afraid of ourselves. The basis 
 of optimism is sheer terror. 
 
 A cigarette is the perfect type of pleasure; it 
 is exquisite and leaves one unsatisfied. 
 
 There are only two kinds of people who are 
 really fascinating: people who know everything, 
 and people who know nothing. 
 
 The secret of remaining young is never to have 
 an emotion that is unbecoming. 
 
 There is always something ridiculous about 
 the passions of people whom one has ceased to 
 love. 
 
 ^ - — Fashion is that by which the fantastic becomes 
 for a moment universal. 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 Civilized society feels that manners are of more 
 importance than morals, and the highest respecta- 
 bility is of less value than the possession of a good 
 chef. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone 
 for cold entrees, nor an irreproachable private 
 life for a bad dinner and poor wines. 
 
 Insincerity is merely a method by which we 
 can multiply our personalities. 
 
 Real beauty ends where an intellectual ex- 
 pression begins. Intellect is in itself an exaggera- 
 tion and destroys the harmony of any face. The 
 moment one sits down to think one becomes all 
 nose or all forehead, or something horrid. 
 
 Being natural is simply a pose. 
 
 A man cannot be too careful in the choice of 
 his enemies. 
 
 I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose 
 
 it comes from the fact that we can't stand other 
 
 people having the same faults as ourselves. 
 
 — 
 
The Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
 We live in an age that reads too much to be wise 
 and thinks too much to be beautiful. 
 
 Nothing makes one so vain as being told that 
 one is a sinner. 
 
 In good society, taking some one's else admirer 
 when one loses one's own always whitewashes 
 a woman. 
 
 Good resolutions are a useless attempt to inter- 
 fere with scientific laws; their origin pure vanity, 
 their results absolutely nil. 
 
 One should absorb the color of life, but one 
 should never remember its details. 
 
 • The charm of the past is that it is past, but 
 women never know when the curtain has fallen. 
 They always want a sixth act. 
 
 Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in 
 the nineteenth century that one cannot explain 
 away. 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears 
 is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a 
 deHghtful city and possess all the attractions of 
 the next world. 
 
 One can never pay too high a price for any 
 sensation. 
 
 To test the Reality we must see it on the tight 
 rope. When the verities become acrobats we can 
 judge them. 
 
 The costume of the nineteenth century is de- 
 testable. Sin is the only real color-element left 
 in modern life. 
 
 I can stand brute force, but brute reason is 
 quite unbearable. There is something unfair 
 about its use. It is hitting below the intellect. 
 
 ^It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but 
 it is better to be good than to be ugly. 
 
 The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, 
 but that one is young. 
 
The Picture of Dorian Grey 
 
 Only sentimentalists can repeat an emotion. 
 
 No woman is a genius: women are a decorative 
 sex. They never have anything to say, but they 
 say it charmingly. They represent the triumph 
 of matter over mind, just as men represent the 
 triumph of mind over morals. There are only 
 two kinds of women, the plain and the colored. 
 The plain women are very useful. If you want 
 to gain a reputation for respectability you have 
 merely to take them down to supper. The other 
 women are very charming. They commit one 
 mistake, however. They paint in order to try 
 to look young. Our grandmothers painted in 
 order to try to talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit 
 used to go together. That has all gone out now. 
 As long as a woman can look ten years younger 
 than her own daughter she is perfectly satisfied. 
 
 It is simply expression that gives reality to 
 things. 
 
 The only difference between a caprice and a 
 lifelong passion is that caprice lasts a little longer. 
 
 [21] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 I like Wagner's music better than any other 
 music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole 
 time without people hearing what one says. That 
 is a great advantage. 
 
 The mind of a thoroughly well-informed man 
 is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust 
 and everything priced above its proper value. 
 
 If one hears bad music it is one's duty to drown 
 it by one's conversation. 
 
 Always! that is a dreadful word. Women are 
 so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by 
 trying to make it last forever. 
 
 Tea is the only simple pleasure left to us. 
 
 It is only shallow people who require years to 
 get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of 
 himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can 
 invent a pleasure. 
 
 [22] 
 
An Ideal Husband 
 
II 
 
 Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward 
 people whom we personally dislike. 
 
 Modern women find a new scandal as be- 
 coming as a new bonnet, and air them both in 
 the Park every afternoon. 
 
 Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. 
 They always want one to be perfectly dumb at 
 the very moment when one is longing to be 
 absolutely deaf. 
 
 Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; 
 one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly. 
 
 Nothing ages women so rapidly as having 
 married the general rule. 
 
 Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people, 
 just as falsehoods are the truths of other people. 
 
 [25] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly 
 modern intellect. 
 
 No woman, plain or pretty, has any common- 
 sense at all. Common-sense is the privilege of 
 our sex and we men are so self-sacrificing that we 
 never use it. 
 
 Spies are of no use nowadays. Their pro- 
 fession is over. The newspapers do their work 
 instead. 
 
 One should always play fairly when one has 
 the winning cards. 
 
 An acquaintance that begins with a compli- 
 ment is sure to develop into a real friendship. 
 
 Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism 
 ends with blue spectacles. Both are merely poses. 
 
 Romance should never begin with sentiment. 
 It should begin with science and end with a 
 settlement. 
 
An Ideal Husband 
 
 When a man has once loved a woman he will 
 do anything for her except continue to love her. 
 
 Philanthropy is the refuge of people who wish 
 to annoy their fellow-creatures. 
 
 The London season is entirely matrimonial. 
 People are either hunting for husbands or hiding 
 from them. 
 
 Society has gone to the dogs: a lot of nobodies 
 talking about nothing. 
 
 Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing 
 ages like happiness. 
 
 There is only one real tragedy in a woman's 
 life. The fact that her past is always her lover, 
 and her future invariably her husband. 
 
 A woman whose size in gloves is seven and 
 three quarters never knows much about anything. 
 
 Questions are never indiscreet, answers some- 
 times are. 
 
 [27] 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 Political parties are the only places left to us 
 where people don't talk politics. 
 
 A man who allows himself to be convinced by 
 an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person, 
 which accounts for so much in women that their 
 husbands never appreciate in them. 
 
 Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. 
 
 In modern life nothing produces such an effect 
 as a good platitude. It makes the whole world 
 kin. 
 
 Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary 
 luxury in modern life, but no man should have a 
 secret from his own wife. She invariably finds 
 out. Women have a wonderful instinct about 
 things. They can discover everything except 
 the obvious. 
 
 If one could only teach the English how to talk 
 and the Irish how to listen society would be quite 
 civilized. 
 
 [28] 
 
An Ideal Husband 
 
 The only thing to do with good advice is to pass 
 it on. It is never of any use to oneself. 
 
 London society is entirely composed of beautiful 
 idiots and brilliant lunatics. 
 
 The only possible society is oneself. 
 
 In the case of a very fascinating woman, sex is 
 a challenge, not a defense. 
 
 Women are never disarmed by compliments, 
 men always are. 
 
 Self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down 
 by law. It is so demoralizing to the people for 
 whom one sacrifices oneself. 
 
 Pluck is not so common nowadays as genius. 
 
 Science cannot grapple with the problem of 
 women. It can never grapple with the irrational. 
 That is why there is no future before it in this 
 world. 
 
 [29] 
 
Epigrams &^ Aphorisms 
 
 To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong 
 romance. 
 
 It is always nice to be expected and not to 
 arrive. 
 
 Being educated puts one almost on a level with 
 the commercial classes. 
 
 No man is rich enough to buy back his past. 
 
 One's past is what one is. It is the only thing 
 by which people should be judged. 
 
 The reason we are so pleased to find out other 
 people's secrets is that it distracts public attention 
 from our own. 
 
 Woman's first duty in life is to her dressmaker. 
 What the second duty is no one has yet discovered. 
 
 Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is 
 unfashionable is what other people wear. 
 
 Youth isn't an affectation. Youth is an art. 
 
An Ideal Husband 
 
 Modern women understand everything except 
 their husbands. 
 
 Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That 
 is the only proper basis for family life. 
 
 [31] 
 
Lady TVindemere^ s Fan 
 
mmmm. 
 
ni 
 
 We are all of us so hard-up nowadays that 
 the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. 
 They're the only things we can pay. 
 
 If you pretend to be good, the world takes you 
 very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it 
 doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of 
 optimism. 
 
 I can resist everything except temptation. 
 
 It is a curious thing about the game of mar- 
 riage — a game, by the way, that is going out 
 of fashion — the wives hold all the honors and 
 invariably lose the odd trick. 
 
 A heart doesn't go with modern dress. It 
 makes one look old. 
 
 Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. 
 [35] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 A cynic is a man who knows the price of 
 everything, and the value of nothing. 
 
 A sentimentalist is a man who sees an absurd 
 value in everything and doesn't know the market 
 price of a single thing. 
 
 The w^orld is packed with good women. To 
 know them is a middle-class education. 
 
 Life is far too important a thing ever to talk 
 seriously about. 
 
 Women always want one to be good. And if 
 we are good when they meet us, they don't love 
 us at all. They like to find us quite irretriev- 
 ably bad and to leave us quite unattractively 
 good. 
 
 What consoles one nowadays is not repent- 
 ance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of 
 date, and beside, if a woman really repents, she 
 has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one 
 believes in her. 
 
 [36] 
 
Lady Windemere's Fan 
 
 We are all in the gutter, but some of us are ^ 
 looking at the stars. 
 
 Experience is a question of instinct about life. 
 
 Actions are the first tragedies in life, words 
 are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. 
 Words are merciless. 
 
 Ideals are dangerous things. Realities wound, 
 but they are better. 
 
 There is nothing in the world like the devo- 
 tion of a married woman. It is a thing no married 
 man knows anything about. 
 
 In this world there are only two tragedies. 
 One is not getting what one wants, and the other 
 is getting it. The last is much the worst ; the last 
 is a real tragedy ! 
 
 Misfortunes one can endure — they come from 
 outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for 
 one's own faults — Ah ! there is the sting of life. 
 
 [37] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 One can always recognize women who trust 
 their husbands, they look so thoroughly unhappy. 
 
 Good people do a great deal of harm in the 
 world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is 
 that they make badness of such extraordinary 
 importance. It is absurd to divide people into 
 good and bad. People are either charming or 
 tedious. 
 
 Men may become old, but they never become 
 good. 
 
 My experience is that as soon as people are old 
 enough to know better, they don't know anything 
 at all. 
 
 It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a 
 thoroughly stupid thing. 
 
 Nothing looks so like innocence as an in- 
 discretion. 
 
 Crying is the refuge of plain women but the 
 ruin of pretty ones. 
 
 [38] 
 
Lady Windemere's Fan 
 
 Men are such cowards. They outrage every 
 law of the world, and are afraid of the world's 
 tongue. 
 
 It is an awfully dangerous thing to come 
 across a woman who thoroughly understands one. 
 They always end by marrying one. 
 
 The youth of the present day are quite mon- 
 strous. They have absolutely no respect for 
 dyed hair. 
 
 History is merely gossip. But scandal is 
 gossip made tedious by morality. A man who 
 moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman 
 who moralizes is invariably plain. There is 
 nothing in the world as unbecoming to a woman 
 as a Nonconformist conscience. 
 
 A mother who doesn't part with a daughter 
 every season has no real affection. 
 
 The world has grown suspicious of anything 
 that looks like a happy married life. 
 
 [39] 
 
Epigrams &' Aphorisins 
 
 It is most dangerous nowadays for a husband 
 to pay any attention to his wife in pubhc. It 
 always makes people think that he beats her 
 when they are alone. 
 
 Nature's gentlemen are the worst type of gen- 
 tlemen I know. 
 
 Even business should have a picturesque back- 
 ground. With a proper back-ground a woman 
 can do anything. 
 
 When men give up saying what is charming, 
 they cease thinking what is charming. 
 
 My own business always bores me to death, I 
 prefer other people's. 
 
 Wicked women bother one, good women bore 
 one. That is the only difference between them. 
 
 How marriage ruins a man ! It is as demoral- 
 izing as cigarettes, and far more expensive. 
 
 [40] 
 
The 
 Importance of Being Earnest 
 
IV 
 
 The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 
 Modern life would be very tedious if it were 
 either, and modern literature an impossibility. 
 
 The amount of women who flirt with their own 
 husbands is scandalous. It is simply washing 
 one's clean linen in public. 
 
 The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. 
 Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be en- 
 couraged in others. 
 
 . A man who desires to get married should know 
 either everything or nothing. 
 
 Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch 
 it and the bloom is gone. Fortunately, in Eng- 
 land at any rate, Education produces no effect 
 whatsoever. 
 
 [43] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 Relations are simply a tedious pack of people 
 who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how 
 to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. 
 
 The way to behave to a woman is to make love 
 to her if she is pretty, and to some one else if she 
 is plain. 
 
 Women only call each other sister after they 
 have called each other a lot of other things first. 
 
 Memory is the diary that chronicles things 
 that never have happened and couldn't possibly 
 have happened. 
 
 The good end happily, the bad unhappily. 
 That is what fiction means. 
 
 The two weak points of our age are want of 
 principle and want of profile. Style depends 
 largely on the way the chin is worn. They are 
 worn very high at present. 
 
 Divorces are made in heaven. 
 [44] 
 
The Importance of Being Earnest 
 
 Long engagements give people the opportunity 
 of finding out each other's character before 
 marriage, which is never advisable. 
 
 No v^oman should ever be quite accurate about 
 her age. It looks so calculating. 
 
 Arguments are to be avoided; they are always 
 vulgar and often convincing. 
 
 Never speak disrespectfully of society. Only 
 people who can't get into it do that. 
 
 Girls never marry the men they flirt with. 
 Girls don't think it right. 
 
 It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about 
 what one should read and what one shouldn't. 
 More than half of modern culture depends on 
 what one shouldn't read. 
 
 It is important not to keep a business engage- 
 ment if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty 
 of life. 
 
 [45] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 If one plays good music people don't listen, 
 and if one plays bad music people don't talk. 
 
 What with the duties expected of one during 
 one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after 
 one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit 
 or pleasure. It gives one position and prevents 
 one from keeping it up. 
 
 By persistently remaining single a man con- 
 verts himself into a permanent public temptation. 
 
 One's duty as a gentleman should never inter- 
 fere with one's pleasures in the slightest degree. 
 
 One must be serious about something if one 
 wants to have any amusement in life. 
 
 An engagement is hardly a serious one that has 
 not been broken off at least once. 
 
 The only way to atone for being occasionally 
 over-dressed is by being always absolutely over- 
 educated. 
 
 [46] 
 
The Importance of Being Earnest 
 
 Whenever one has anything unpleasant to say 
 one should always be quite candid. 
 
 Flowers are as common in the country as people 
 are in London. 
 
 It is very vulgar to talk about one's own busi- 
 ness. Only people like stock-brokers do that, 
 and then merely at dinner parties. 
 
 Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental de- 
 cay in the young, of physical weakness in the old. 
 
 Three addresses always inspire confidence — 
 even in tradesmen. 
 
 All women become like their mothers — that 
 is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. 
 
 Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what 
 their children say to them. The old-fashioned 
 respect for the young is fast dying out. 
 
 In married life three is company and two is 
 none. 
 
 [47] 
 
A Woman of No Importance 
 
Twenty years of romance make a woman look 
 like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make 
 her something like a public building. 
 
 To have the reputation of possessing the most 
 perfect social tact, talk to every woman as if you 
 loved her, and to every man as if he bored you. 
 
 To get into the best society nowadays, one has 
 either to feed people, amuse people, or shock 
 people. 
 
 Women are pictures, men are problems: if you 
 want to know what a woman really means, look 
 at her, don't listen to her. 
 
 There is no such thing as romance in our day, 
 women have become too brilliant; nothing spoils 
 a romance so much as a sense of humor in the 
 woman. 
 
 [51] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 Children begin by loving their parents; after a 
 time they judge them, rarely, if ever, do they for- 
 give them. 
 
 If a man is a gentleman he knows quite enough, 
 and if he is not a gentleman whatever he knows 
 is bad for him. 
 
 Discontent is the first step in the progress 
 of a man or a nation. 
 
 Sentiment is all very well for a boutonniere, 
 but a well-tied tie is the first serious step in life. 
 
 Clever people never listen and stupid people 
 never talk. 
 
 The youth of America is their oldest tradition. 
 It has been going on now for three hundred 
 years. To hear them talk one would imagine 
 they were in their first childhood. As far as 
 civilization goes they are in their second. 
 
 Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. 
 [52] 
 
A Woman of No Importance 
 
 Women have become so highly educated that 
 nothing should surprise them except happy 
 marriages. 
 
 Health — the silliest word in our language, 
 and one knows the popular idea of health. The 
 English country gentleman galloping after a 
 fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the un- 
 eatable. 
 
 It is safer to believe evil of everyone until 
 people are found out to be good, but that re- 
 quires a great deal of investigation nowadays. 
 
 The basis of every scandal is an absolutely 
 immoral certainty. 
 
 . Plain women are always jealous of their hus- 
 bands, beautiful women never are; they have no 
 time, they are always so occupied in being jealous 
 of other people's husbands. 
 
 A bad man is the sort of man who admires 
 innocence. 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 A bad woman is the sort of woman a man 
 never gets tired of. 
 
 It is perfectly monstrous the way people go 
 about nowadays saying things against one, be- 
 hind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely 
 true. 
 
 America is a Paradise for women — that is 
 why, like Eve, the American women are extremely 
 anxious to get out of it. 
 
 To elope is cowardly ; it is running away from 
 mger; 
 ern life. 
 
 danger; and danger has become so rare in mod- 
 
 The one advantage of playing with fire is that 
 one never even gets singed. It is the people who 
 don't know how to play with it that get burned 
 up. 
 
 There is no objection to plain women being 
 Puritans ; it is the only excuse they have for being 
 plain. 
 
 [54] 
 
A Woman of No Importance 
 
 Women as a sex are Sphinxes without secrets. 
 
 The Soul is born old, but it grows young; that 
 is the comedy of life. The Body is born young 
 and grows old; that is Life's tragedy. 
 
 Vulgar habit people have nowadays of asking 
 one, after one has given them an idea, whether 
 one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except 
 passion. The intellect is an instrument on which 
 one plays, that is all. The only serious form of 
 intellect is the British intellect. And on the 
 British form of intellect the illiterates play the 
 drum. 
 
 All Americans dress well — they get their 
 clothes in Paris. 
 
 It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins 
 nor curiosities in America when they have their 
 mothers and their manners. 
 
 After a good dinner one could forgive anybody, 
 even one's own relations. 
 
 [55] 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 Men are horribly tedious when they are good 
 husbands, and abominably conceited when they 
 are not. 
 
 Men always want to be a woman's first love — 
 women like to be a man's last romance. 
 
 Women are a fascinatingly wilful set. Every 
 woman is a rebel and usually in wild revolt 
 against herself. 
 
 All men are married women's property; that is 
 the only true definition of what married women's 
 property really is. 
 
 One can survive everything except Death, and 
 live down everything except a good reputation. 
 
 Society is a necessary thing. No man has any 
 real success in this world unless he has women 
 to back him, and women rule society. If you 
 have not got women on your side you are quite 
 over. You might as well be a barrister, or a 
 stock-broker, or a journalist at once. 
 
 [56] 
 
A Woman of No Importance 
 
 The history of woman is the history of the 
 worst form of tryanny the world has ever known : 
 the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is 
 the only tyranny that lasts. 
 
 Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the 
 complex. 
 
 One should sympathize with the joy, the beauty, 
 the color of life — the less said about life's sores 
 the better. 
 
 Women have always been picturesque protests 
 against the mere existence of common sense. 
 
 When good Americans die they go to Paris, 
 when bad Americans die they go to America. 
 
 When a man is old enough to do wrong he should 
 be old enough to do right also. 
 
 When one has never heard a man's name in the 
 course of one's life it speaks volumes for him; he 
 must be quite respectable. 
 
 [57] " 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 Duty is what one expects from others — it is not 
 what one does oneself. 
 
 Enghsh women conceal their feelings until after 
 they are married, then they show them. 
 
 One should never trust a woman who tells 
 one her real age. A woman who would tell that 
 would tell anything. 
 
 One should never take sides in anything — 
 taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and 
 earnestness follows shortly after, and the human 
 being becomes a bore. 
 
 The happiness of a married man depends on 
 the people he has not married. 
 
 One should always be in love : that is the reason 
 one should never marry. 
 
 The only difference between a saint and a 
 sinner is that every saint has a past, and every 
 sinner has a future. 
 
 [58] 
 
A Woman of No Importance 
 
 The world havS always laughed at its own 
 tragedies, that being the only way in which it 
 has been able to bear them; consequently, what- 
 ever the world has treated seriously belongs to 
 the comedy side of things. 
 
 Women love men for their defects; if men have 
 enough of them women will forgive them every- 
 thing, even their gigantic intellects. 
 
 The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure 
 of being terribly deceived. 
 
 Moderation is a fatal thing; nothing succeeds 
 like excess. 
 
 Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdi- 
 ness. 
 
 When a man says he has exhausted life one 
 always knows life has exhausted him. 
 
 Men know life too early, women know life too 
 late. 
 
 [59] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 The world is divided into two classes, those 
 who believe the incredible, and those who do the 
 improbable. 
 
 All thought is immoral. Its very essence is 
 destruction. If you think of anything you kill it. 
 Nothing survives being thought of. 
 
 Women have a much better time than men in 
 this world; there are far more things forbidden 
 to them. 
 
 To be in society is merely a bore, but to be 
 out of it simply a tragedy. 
 
 There is nothing like youth. The middle aged 
 are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's 
 lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. 
 Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one 
 is born a king, and most people die in exile, like 
 most kings. 
 
 American women are wonderfully clever in 
 concealing their parents. 
 
 [60] 
 
A Woman of No Importance 
 
 A really grande passion is comparatively rare 
 nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have 
 nothing to do. That is the only use of the idle 
 classes in the country. 
 
 More marriages are ruined nowadays by the 
 common sense of the husband than by anything 
 else. How can a woman be expected to be happy 
 with a man who insists on treating her as if she 
 were a perfectly rational being. 
 
 A husband is a sort of promissory note — a 
 woman is tired of meeting him. 
 
 Life is a mauvais quart d^heure made up of 
 exquisite moments. 
 
 [6i] 
 
Phrases and Philosophies for the 
 Use of the Young 
 
VI 
 
 The first duty in life is to be as artificial as 
 possible. What the second duty is no one has 
 yet discovered. 
 
 Wickedness is a myth invented by good people 
 to account for the curious attractiveness of others. 
 
 Those who see any difference between soul and 
 body have neither. 
 
 Religions die when they are proved to be true. 
 Science is the record of dead religions. 
 
 The well bred contradict other people. The 
 wise contradict themselves. 
 
 Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest 
 importance. 
 
 Dulness is the coming of age of seriousness. 
 [65] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or 
 later, to be found out. 
 
 In all unimportant matters style not sincerity 
 is the essential. In all important matters style 
 not sincerity is the essential. 
 
 It is only by not paying our bills that we can 
 hope to live in the memory of the commercial 
 classes. 
 
 y Only the shallow know themselves. 
 
 Time is waste of money. 
 
 There is a fatality about all good resolutions. 
 They are invariably made too soon. 
 
 Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right 
 or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual 
 development. 
 
 A truth ceases to be true when more than one 
 person believes in it. 
 
 [66] 
 
Phrases and Philosophies 
 
 The vanishing point of social tolerance is rep- 
 resented by a woman without sentiment enough 
 to yearn for love in a cottage, and without sense 
 enough to refuse it. 
 
 Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. 
 
 One should either be a work of art, or wear a 
 work of art. 
 
 It is only the superficial qualities that last. 
 Man's deeper nature is soon found out. 
 
 Industry is the root of all ugliness. 
 
 The old believe everything; the middle aged 
 suspect everything; the young know everything. 
 
 The condition of perfection is idleness; the aim 
 of perfection is youth. 
 
 Modern morality consists in accepting the 
 standard of one's age. 
 
 Women give to men the very gold of their 
 lives, but they invariably want it back in very 
 small change. 
 
 [67] 
 
Oscariana 
 
VII 
 
 The costume of the nineteenth century is de- 
 testable. Sin is the only real color element left 
 in modern life. 
 
 Evening clothes on a London merchant remind 
 one of a morocco binding on a cook-book or a 
 doyly on a stove lid. 
 
 Credit is the capital of a younger son, and he 
 can live charmingly on it. 
 
 To get back one's youth one has merely to re- 
 peat one's follies. 
 
 Nowadays most people die of a sort of creep- 
 ing common sense, and discover, when it is too 
 late, that the only thing one never regrets are 
 one's mistakes. 
 
 No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and 
 no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is. 
 
 [71] 
 
Epigrams & Aphorisms 
 
 If a man treats life artistically, his brain is in 
 his heart. 
 
 Pleasure is nature's test, her sign of approval. 
 ' When we are happy we are always good ; but when 
 we are good we are not always happy. 
 
 Most people become bankrupt through having 
 invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have 
 ruined oneself over poetry is an honor. 
 
 Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us 
 '' just as Humanity treats its gods. They worship 
 us, and are always bothering us to do something 
 for them. 
 
 The only horrible thing in the world is ennui. 
 That is the one sin for which there is no forgive- 
 ness. 
 
 There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny 
 does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too 
 cruel for that. 
 
 [72] 
 
Oscariana 
 
 How fond women are of doing dangerous 
 things. It is one of the qualities in them that I 
 admire most. A woman will flirt with anybody 
 in the world as long as other people are looking on. 
 
 A Radical is merely a man who is never dined, 
 and a Tory simply a gentleman who has never 
 thought. 
 
 The world has been made by fools that wise 
 men may live in it. 
 
 [73] 
 
T^he Cantervilk Ghost 
 
VIII 
 
 The subjects discussed were merely such as 
 form the ordinary conversation of cultured 
 Americans of the better class, such as the im- 
 mense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport 
 over Sara Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty 
 of obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes and 
 hominy, even in the best English houses; the 
 importance of Boston in the development of the 
 world-soul; the advantages of the baggage-check 
 system in railway traveling ; and the sweetness of 
 the Nev/ York accent as compared to the Lon- 
 don drawl. 
 
 The reward of all good little American girls is 
 the coronet — if they are good enough and rich 
 enough. 
 
 If a woman cannot make her mistakes charm- 
 ingly she is merely a female. 
 
 [77] 
 
"The Decay of Lying 
 
IX 
 
 Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is 
 the proper aim of Art. 
 
 y Art reveals Nature's lack of design, her curious 
 crudities, her absolutely unfinished condition. Na- 
 ture has good intentions, but she cannot carry 
 them out. Art is our gallant attempt to teach 
 Nature her proper place. 
 
 The crude commercialism of America, its 
 materializing spirit, its indifference to the poetical 
 side of things, its lack of imagination and of high 
 unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that coun- 
 try having adopted for its national hero one who, 
 according to his own confession, was incapable of 
 telling a lie; and it is not too much to say that 
 the story of George Washington and the cherry 
 tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space 
 of time, than any other moral tale in the whole 
 of literature. 
 
 [8i] 
 
Epigrams ^ Aphorisms 
 
 The aim of the Har is simply to charm, to de- 
 light, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of 
 civilized society. 
 
 Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates 
 Life. 
 
 Literature always anticipates life. It does not 
 copy it, but molds it to its purpose. 
 
 No great artist ever sees things as they really 
 are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. 
 
 Most of our modern portrait painters are 
 I doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint 
 what they see. They paint what the public sees, 
 and the public never sees anything. 
 
 At twilight nature becomes a wonderfully sug- 
 gestive effect, and is not without loveliness, though 
 ' perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations 
 from the poets. 
 
 England is the home of lost ideas. 
 [82] 
 
The Decay of Lying 
 
 Nature hates Mind. Thinking is the most un- 
 healthy thing in the world, and people die of it 
 just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, 
 in England at any rate, thought is not catching. 
 Our splendid physique is entirely due to our 
 national stupidity. 
 
 People are beginning to be over-educated; at 
 least everybody who is incapable of learning has 
 taken to teaching. 
 
 If a man is sufficiently unimaginative to pro- 
 duce evidence in support of a lie, he might just 
 as well speak the truth at once. 
 
 What is interesting about people in good society 
 is the mask that each one of them wears, not the 
 reality that lies behind the mask. 
 
 We are a degraded race and have sold our 
 birthright for a mess of facts. 
 
 Nature is always behind the age. 
 [83] 
 
Epigrams &^ Aphorisms 
 
 Many a young man starts in life with a natural 
 gift of exaggeration which, if nurtured in con- 
 genial and sympathetic surroundings, might grow 
 into something really great and wonderful. But, 
 as a rule, he comes to nothing. He either falls 
 into careless habits of accuracy, or takes to fre- 
 quenting the society of the aged and well-in- 
 formed. Both things are equally fatal to his 
 imagination, as indeed they would be fatal to the 
 imagination of anybody, and in a short time he 
 develops a morbid and unhealthy faculty of truth 
 telling, begins to verify all statements made in his 
 presence, has no hesitation in contradicting 
 people who are much younger than himself, and 
 often ends by writing novels which are so like 
 life that no one can possibly believe in their 
 probability. 
 
 Lying for the sake of the improvement of the 
 young, which is the basis of home education, still 
 lingers among us, but the only form of lying that 
 is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own 
 sake, and the highest development of this is, lying 
 in art. 
 
 [84] 
 
The Decay of Lying 
 
 One touch of Nature may make the whole 
 world kin, but two touches of Nature will destroy- 
 any work of art. 
 
 All bad art comes from returning to Life and 
 Nature and elevating them into ideals. Life and 
 Nature may sometimes be used as part of Art's 
 rough material, but before they are of any real 
 service to Art they must be translated into artistic 
 conventions. 
 
 The only beautiful things are the things that 
 do not concern us. 
 
 Nobody of any real culture ever talks nowadays 
 about the beauty of the sunset. Sunsets are 
 quite old fashioned. 
 
 [85] 
 
The Soul of Man Under 
 Socialism 
 
X 
 
 There are three kinds of despots. There is 
 the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There 
 is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. 
 There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul 
 and body ahke. The first is called the Prince. 
 The second is called the Pope. The third is 
 called the People. 
 
 There is not a single real poet or prose writer 
 of this century on whom the British public have 
 not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, 
 and these diplomas practically take the place with 
 us, of what in France is the formal recognition 
 of an Academy of Letters, and fortunately make 
 the establishment of such an institution quite un- 
 necessary in England. 
 
 It is immoral to use private property in order 
 to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the 
 institution of private property. 
 
 [89] 
 
/ 
 
 Epigrams ^ Aphorisms 
 
 Evolution is the law of life, and there is no 
 evolution save toward Individualism. 
 
 Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. 
 It is asking others to live as one wishes to live. 
 
 In America the President reigns for four years, 
 and Journalism governs forever and ever. For- 
 tunately, in America, Journalism has carried its 
 authority to the grossest and most brutal ex- 
 treme. It is no longer seriously treated. 
 
 In centuries before ours the public nailed the"\ 
 ears of journalists to the pump. In this century (-^^ 
 journalists have nailed their own ears to the key-y 
 hole. 
 
 One who is an emperor or king may stoop down 
 and pick up a brush for a painter, but when the 
 democracy stoops down it is merely to throw 
 mud. 
 
 The majority of men spoil their lives by an 
 exaggerated and unhealthy altruism. 
 
 [90] 
 
The Soul of Man Under Socialism 
 
 A Community is infinitely more brutalized by 
 the habitual employment of punishment than it 
 is by the occasional occurrence of crime. 
 
 Disobedience in the eyes of any one who has 
 read history is man's original virtue. It is through 
 disobedience that progress has been made, through 
 disobedience and through rebellion. 
 
 He who would lead a Christ- like life is he who 
 is perfectly and absolutely himself. He may be a 
 great poet, or a great man of science, or a young 
 student at the University, or one who watches 
 sheep upon a moor, or a maker of dramas like 
 Shakespeare, or a thinker about God like Spinoza, 
 or a child who plays in a garden, or a fisherman 
 who throws his nets into the sea. It does not 
 matter what he is as long as he realizes the per- 
 fection of the soul that is within him. 
 
 There is only one class in the community that 
 thinks more about money than the rich, and that 
 is the poor. The poor can think of nothing 
 else. That is the misery of being poor. 
 
 [91] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 Individualism does not come to a man with any 
 claims upon him at all. It comes naturally and 
 inevitably out of man. It is the point to which 
 all development tends. It is the differentiation 
 to which all organisms grow. It is the perfec- 
 tion that is inherent in every mode of life, and 
 toward which every mode of life quickens. In- 
 dividualism exercises no compulsion over man. 
 On the contrary, it says to man that he should 
 suffer no compulsion to be exercised over him. 
 It does not try to force people to be good. It 
 knows that people are good when they are let 
 alone. To ask whether Individualism is prac- 
 tical is like asking whether Evolution is practical. 
 Evolution is the law of life, and there is no evolu- 
 tion except toward individualism. 
 
 To call an artist morbid because he deals with 
 morbidity as his subject-matter is as silly as if 
 one called Shakespeare mad because he wrote 
 King Lear. 
 
 As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, 
 but it is finer to take than to beg. 
 
 [92] 
 
 .^; ■ ■■;■_. 
 
The Soul of Man Under Socialism 
 
 A map of the world that does not include 
 Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves 
 out the one country at which Humanity is always 
 landing. And when Humanity lands there, it 
 looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. 
 Progress is the realization of Utopias. 
 
 Nothing should be able to harm a man except 
 himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man 
 at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. 
 What is outside of him should be a matter of no 
 importance. 
 
 The public has always in every age been badly 
 brought up. They are continually asking art 
 to be popular, to please their want of taste, to 
 flatter their absurd vanity, to show them what 
 they ought to be tired of seeing, and to distract 
 their thoughts when they are tired of their own 
 stupidity. Now art should never try to be popu- 
 lar. The public should try to make itself artistic. 
 
 The public have an insatiable curiosity to 
 know everything, except what is worth knowing. 
 
 [93] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 What man has sought for is neither pain or 
 pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to 
 live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do 
 so without exercising restraint on others, or 
 suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasur- 
 able to him, he will be saner, healthier, more 
 civilized, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's 
 test, her sign of approval. When man is happy 
 he is at harmony with himself and his environ- 
 ment. 
 
 A work of art is the unique result of a unique 
 temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact 
 that its author is what he is. It has nothing to 
 do with the fact that other people want what 
 they want. Indeed, the moment the artist takes 
 notice of what other people want, and tries to 
 supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist and 
 becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest 
 or a dishonest tradesman. Art is the most in- 
 tense mode of individualism the world has known. 
 
 [94] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
XI 
 
 I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally 
 written by people who have either entirely lost 
 their memories, or have never done anything 
 worth remembering ; which, however, is, no doubt, 
 the true explanation of their popularity, as the 
 English public always feels perfectly at its ease 
 when a mediocrity is talking to it. 
 
 The public is wonderfully tolerant. It for- 
 gives everything except genius. 
 
 Cheap editions of great books may be delight- 
 ful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely 
 detestable. 
 
 Listening to the conversation of some one older 
 than yourself is always a dangerous thing to do; 
 if you allow it to degenerate to a habit, you will 
 find it absolutely fatal to any intellectual develop- 
 ment. 
 
 [97] 
 
Epigrams &^ Aphorisms 
 
 Every great man nowadays has his disciples, 
 and it is always Judas who writes the biography. 
 
 Learned conversation is either the affectation 
 of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally 
 unemployed. Improving conversation is merely 
 the foolish method by which the still more foolish 
 philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just 
 rancor of the criminal classes. 
 
 How appalling is the ignorance which is the 
 inevitable result of the fatal habit of imparting 
 opinions! 
 
 Just as the philanthropist is the nuisance of 
 the ethical sphere, so the nuisance of the in- 
 tellectual sphere is the man who is so occupied 
 in trying to educate others, that he has never 
 had any time to educate himself. 
 
 Man is a rational animal who always loses his 
 temper when he is called upon to act in accordance 
 with the dictates of reason. 
 
 [98] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
 Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the 
 opinion that has survived. 
 
 It is only an auctioneer who can equally and 
 impartially admire all schools of art. 
 
 There are two ways of disliking art. One is 
 to dislike it. The other is to like it rationally. 
 
 A little sincerity is a dangerous thing. 
 
 All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. 
 To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious 
 is to be inartistic. 
 
 England has done one thing; it has invented 
 and established public opinion, which is an 
 attempt to organize the ignorance of the com- 
 munity, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical 
 force. 
 
 There is only one thing worse than Injustice, 
 and that is Justice without her sword in her 
 hand. When Right is not Might, it is Evil. 
 
 [99] 
 
 LofC- 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 It is always with the best intentions that the 
 worst work is done. 
 
 To be good according to the vulgar standard 
 of goodness is quite easy. It merely requires a 
 certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack 
 of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion 
 for middle-class respectability. 
 
 Science is out of the reach of morals, for her 
 eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out 
 of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed 
 upon things beautiful and immortal and ever- 
 changing. 
 
 Though of all poses a moral pose is the most 
 offensive, still to have a pose at all is something. 
 It is a form of recognition of the importance of 
 treating life from a definite and reasoned stand- 
 point. 
 
 Life makes us pay too high a price for its 
 wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets 
 at a cost that is monstrous and infinite. 
 
 [loo] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
 It takes a thoroughly selfish age, like our own, 
 to deify self-sacrifice. 
 
 Those who try to lead the people can only do 
 so by following the mob. 
 
 Charity creates a multitude of evils. 
 
 The mere existence of conscience is a sign of 
 our imperfect development. It must be merged 
 in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial 
 is simply a method by which man arrests his 
 progress. 
 
 When man acts he is a puppet. When he 
 describes he is a poet. 
 
 • Life is terribly deficient in form. Its catas- 
 trophes happen in a wrong way and to the wrong 
 people. There is a grotesque horror about its 
 comedies, and its tragedies seem to culminate in 
 farce. One is always wounded when one ap- 
 proaches it. Things last either too long or not 
 long enough. 
 
 [lOl] 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 Conversation should touch everything, but 
 should concentrate itself on nothing. 
 
 Modern journalism justifies its own existence 
 by the great Darwinian principle of the survival 
 of the vulgarest. 
 
 The difference between literature and journal- 
 ism is that journalism is unreadable, and litera- 
 ture is not read. 
 
 There is much to be said in favor of modern 
 journalism. By giving us the opinions of the 
 uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the igno- 
 rance of the community. 
 
 Indiscretion is the better part of valor. 
 
 The sure way of knowing nothing about life 
 is to try to make oneself useful. 
 
 The basis of action is lack of imagination. 
 It is the last resource of those who know not how 
 to dream. 
 
 [102] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
 He who would stir us by fiction must either 
 give us an entirely new back-ground, or reveal 
 to us the soul of man in its inmost workings. 
 The first is for the moment being done for us by 
 Mr. Rudyard Kipling. As one turns over the 
 pages of his "Plain Tales from the Hills," one 
 feels as if one were seated under a palm tree read- 
 ing life by superb flashes of vulgarity. The 
 mere lack of style in the story teller gives an odd 
 journalistic realism to what he tells us. From 
 the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a 
 genius who drops his aspirates. From the 
 point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows 
 vulgarity better than any one has ever known it. 
 He is our first authority on the second-rate, and 
 has seen marvelous things through keyholes. 
 
 We live in the age of the over- worked, and the 
 under-educated; the age in which people are so 
 industrious that they become absolutely stupid. 
 
 To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing 
 in the world, the most difficult and the most 
 intellectual. 
 
 [103] 
 
Epigrams @^ Aphorisms 
 
 It is to do nothing that the elect exist. 
 
 Imagination is the result of heredity. It is 
 simply concentrated race-experience. 
 
 A dreamer is one who can only find his way 
 by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees 
 the dawn before the rest of the world. 
 
 It is because Humanity has never known 
 where it was going that it has been able to find 
 its way. 
 
 Society often forgives the criminal; it never 
 forgives the dreamer. 
 
 After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been 
 weeping over sins that I had never committed, 
 and mourning over tragedies that were not my 
 own. Music always seems to me to produce 
 that effect. It creates for one a past of which 
 one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense 
 of sorrows that have been hidden from one's 
 tears. 
 
 [104] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
 The meaning of any beautiful created thing 
 is, at least, as much in the soul of him who looks 
 at it, as it was in his soul who wrought it. 
 
 When we have fully discovered the scientific 
 laws that govern life, we shall realize that the 
 one person who has more illusions than the 
 dreamer is the man of action. 
 
 Better to take pleasure in a rose than to put 
 its root under a microscope. 
 
 The Past is of no importance. The Present 
 is of no importance. It is with the Future that we 
 have to deal. For the Past is what man should 
 not have been. The Present is what man ought 
 not to be. The Future is what artists are. 
 
 A true artist takes no notice whatever of the 
 public. The public are to him non-existent. 
 
 Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It 
 merely requires a complete ignorance of both 
 life and literature. 
 
 [105] 
 
Epigrams (Sf Aphorisms 
 
 To know the vintage and quality of a wine one 
 need not drink the whole cask. 
 
 It is ven- much more difficult to talk about a 
 thing than to do it. In the sphere of actual 
 life that is, of course, obvious. Anybody can 
 make history. Only a great man can write it. 
 
 To give an accurate description of what has 
 never occurred is the inalienable privilege and 
 proper occupation of the historian. 
 
 Technique is really personality. That is the 
 reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the 
 pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic 
 critic can understand it. 
 
 Ever}' centur\' that produces poetr}- is, so far, 
 an artificial centur}-, and the work that seems to 
 us to be the most natural and simple product of 
 its time is always the result of the most self-con- 
 scious effort. There is no fine art without self- 
 consciousness, and self-consciousness and a criti- 
 cal spirit are one. 
 
 [io6] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
 Education is an admirable thing, but it is well 
 to remember from time to time that nothing that 
 is worth knowing can be taught. 
 
 The Creeds are believed, not because they are 
 rational, but because they are repeated. Yes, 
 Form is eversihing. It is the secret of Life. 
 Find expression for a sorrow and it will become 
 dear to you. Find expression for a joy and you 
 intensify its ecstacy. Do you wish to love ? Use 
 Love's Litany, and the words will create the yearn- 
 ing from which the world fancies that they spring. 
 Have you a grief that corrodes your heart? 
 Steep yourself in the language of grief, learn its 
 utterance from Prince Hamlet and Queen Con- 
 stance, and you will find that the mere expression 
 is a mode of consolation, and that Form, which 
 is the birth of Passion, is also the death of Pain. 
 And so to return to the sphere of Art, it is Fonn 
 that creates, that creates not merely the critical 
 temperament, but also the aesthetic instinct that 
 reveals to one all things under the condition of 
 beaut}\ Start xs'ith the worship of Form, and there is 
 no secret in Art that will not be revealed to you. 
 
 [107] 
 
Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 
 
 We are born in an age when only the dull are 
 treated seriously. 
 
 There have been critical ages that have not 
 been creative, in the ordinary sense of the word, 
 ages in which the spirit of man has sought to set 
 in order the treasures of his treasure house, to 
 separate the gold from the silver, and the silver 
 from the lead, to count over the jewels, and to 
 give names to the pearls. But there has never 
 been a creative age that has not been critical 
 also. For it is the critical faculty that invents 
 fresh forms. The tendency of creation is to 
 repeat itself. It is to the critical instinct that 
 we owe each new school that springs up, each 
 new mold that art finds ready to its hands. 
 
 A truly great artist cannot conceive of life 
 being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any 
 conditions other than those that he has selected. 
 Creation employs all its critical faculty within 
 its own sphere. It may not use it in a sphere that 
 belongs to others. It is exactly because a man 
 cannot do a thing that he is the proper judge of it. 
 
 [io8] 
 
The Critic as Artist 
 
 It is so easy for people to have sympathy for 
 suffering. It is so difficult for them to have 
 sympathy with thought. Indeed, ordinary people 
 seem to imagine that, when they have said a 
 theory is dangerous, they have pronounced its 
 condemnation, whereas it is only such theories 
 that have any true intellectual value. 
 
 [109] 
 
Tthe Credo 
 
XII 
 
 To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's 
 aim. 
 
 Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful 
 things are corrupt without being charming. 
 
 There is no such thing as a moral or immoral 
 book. Books are well written or badly written. 
 That is all. 
 
 The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is 
 the rage of Caliban at seeing his own face in the 
 glass. 
 
 The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism 
 is the rage of Caliban at not seeing his own face 
 in the glass. 
 
 Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows 
 that the work is new, complex, and vital. 
 
 [113] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical 
 sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable man- 
 nerism of style. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 ad- 
 mires it intensely. 
 
 [114] 
 
L'^ Envoi 
 
XIII 
 
 It is not enough that a work should conform 
 to the aesthetic demands of the age, there should 
 be about it, if it is to give us any permanent de- 
 light, the impress of a distinct individuality. What- 
 ever work we have in the nineteenth century must 
 rest on the two poles of personality and perfection. 
 
 This increased sense of the absolutely satisfy- 
 ing value of beautiful workmanship, this recogni- 
 tion of the primary importance of the sensuous 
 element in art, this love of art for art's sake, is 
 the point in which we of the younger school 
 have made a departure from the teaching of Mr. 
 Ruskin — a departure definitive and different and 
 decisive. 
 
 [117] 
 
The English Renaissance of Art 
 
XIV 
 
 The Origin of the Art Revolution 
 
 In the year 1847 ^ number of young men in 
 London, all admirers of Keats, were in the habit 
 of meeting together and discussing art. They had 
 determined to revolutionize poetry and painting. 
 To do so was to lose, in England, all their rights 
 as citizens. They had those things which the 
 English public never forgives — youth, power, and 
 enthusiasm. Satire paid the usual homage which 
 mediocrity yields to genius, blinding the British 
 public to what is noble and beautiful, but harming 
 the artist not at all. To disagree with three- 
 fourths of England on all points is one of the first 
 elements of sanity, which is a deep source of 
 consolation in all moments of spiritual doubt. 
 
 These young men called themselves Pre- 
 Raphaelites because, as opposed to the facile 
 abstractions of Raphael they thought they had 
 found a stronger realism of imagination, a more 
 
 [121] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 careful realism of technique, an individuality 
 more intense. 
 
 The Sunflower and the Lily 
 
 You have heard, I think, a few of you, of two 
 flowers connected with the aesthetic movement in 
 England, said (I assure you erroneously) to be the 
 food of some aesthetic young men. Well, let me 
 tell you that the reason we love the lily and the 
 sunflower, in spite of what Mr. Gilbert may tell 
 you, is not for any vegetable fashion at all; it is 
 because these two lovely flowers are in England 
 the two most perfect models of design, the most 
 naturally adapted for decorative art — the gaudy 
 leonine beauty of the one and the precious loveli- 
 ness of the other giving to the artist the most 
 entire and perfect joy. And so with you ; let there 
 be no flower in your meadows that does not 
 wreathe its tendrils around your pillows, no little 
 leaf in your Titan forests that does not lend its 
 form to design, no curving spray of wild rose or 
 brier that does not live forever in carven arch or 
 window of marble, no bird in your air that is not 
 
 [122] 
 
The English Renaissance of Art 
 
 giving the iridescent wonder of its color, the exqui- 
 site curves of its wings in flight, to make more 
 precious the preciousness of simple adornment; 
 for the voices that have their dwelling in sea and 
 mountain are not the chosen music of liberty only. 
 Other messages are there in the wonder of wind- 
 swept heights and the majesty of silent deep — 
 messages that, if you will listen to them, will give 
 you the wonder of all new imagination, the treas- 
 ure of all new beauty. We spend our days, each 
 one of us, in looking for the secret of life. Well, 
 the secret of life is in art. 
 
 <$» 
 
 The Novel and the Drama 
 
 The novel has not killed the play, as some 
 critics would persuade us. The romantic period 
 of France shows that the work of Balzac and of 
 Hugo grew up side by side together — nay, more, 
 were complementary to each other, although 
 neither of them saw it. The drama is the meet- 
 ing-place of art and life ; it deals, as Mazzini said, 
 not merely with man, but with social man, with 
 man in relation to God and to humanity. It is 
 
 [123] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms 
 
 the product of a period of great national, united 
 energy. It is impossible without a noble public, 
 and it belongs to such ages as the age of Elizabeth 
 at London, Pericles at Athens. It is part of such 
 lofty, moral, and spiritual ardor as came to Greece 
 after the defeat of the Persian fleet, and to Eng- 
 lishmen after the wreck of the Armada of Spain. 
 
 Shelley felt how incomplete our movement was 
 in this respect, and has shown in one great tragedy 
 by what terror and pity he would have pacified 
 our age, but in spite of the "Cenci" the drama is 
 one of the artistic forms through which the genius of 
 England seeks in vain an outlet and an expression. 
 
 Where Morality is Not in Question 
 
 In nations, as in individuals, if the passion for 
 creation be not accompanied by the critical, the 
 aesthetic faculty also, it will be sure to waste its 
 strength. It is not an increased moral sense or 
 moral supervision that your literature needs. 
 Indeed, one should never talk of a moral or im- 
 moral poem. Poems are either well written or 
 badly written; that is all. Any element of morals 
 
 [124] 
 
The English Renaissance of Art 
 
 or implied reference to a standard of good and 
 evil in art is often a sign of a certain incomplete- 
 ness of vision. x\ll good work aims at a purely 
 artistic effect. But as in your cities so in your 
 literature, it is an increased sensibility to beauty 
 that is lacking. All noble work is not national 
 merely, but universal. Spiritual freedom your 
 own generous lives and liberal air will give you. 
 From us you will learn the classical restraint of 
 form. Love art for its own sake and then all 
 things that you need will be added to you. This 
 devotion to beauty, and to the creation of beautiful 
 things, is the test of all great civilizations; it is 
 what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament, 
 and not a speculation. For beauty is the only 
 thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall 
 away like sand, creeds follow one another, but 
 what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a posses- 
 sion for all eternity. 
 
 America to Complete the Movement 
 
 It is rather, perhaps, to you that we would turn 
 to complete and perfect this great movement of 
 
 [125] 
 
Epigrams &f Aphorisms , 
 
 ours, for there is something Hellenic in your air 
 and world, something that has a quicker breath 
 of the joy and power of Elizabeth's England about 
 it than our ancient civilization can give us. For 
 you, at least, are young; no hungry generations 
 tread you down, and the past does not mock you 
 with the ruins of a beauty the secret of whose 
 creation you have lost. That very absence of 
 tradition which Ruskin thought would rob your 
 rivers of their laughter and your flowers of their 
 light may be rather the source of your freedom 
 and strength. To speak in literature with the 
 perfect rectitude of the movement of animals, and 
 the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees 
 and the grass by the roadside, has been defined 
 by one of your poets as the flawless triumph of 
 art; it is a triumph which you above all other 
 nations may be destined to achieve. For the 
 voices that have their dwelling in sea and moun- 
 tain are not the chosen music of liberty only. 
 Other messages are there, if you will but listen to 
 them — may yield you the splendor of some new 
 imagination, the marvel of some new liberty. 
 
 [126] 
 
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