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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: and those that are to come after them. For that beauty which is
meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can
take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live
as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be
less than men.
Do not think that the commercial spirit which is the basis of your
life and cities here is opposed to art. Who built the beautiful
cities of the world but commercial men and commercial men only?
Genoa built by its traders, Florence by its bankers, and Venice,
most lovely of all, by its noble and honest merchants.
I do not wish you, remember, 'to build a new Pisa,' nor to bring
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