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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: moment, we can intellectually so separate them. An unhealthy work
of art, on the other hand, is a work whose style is obvious, old-
fashioned, and common, and whose subject is deliberately chosen,
not because the artist has any pleasure in it, but because he
thinks that the public will pay him for it. In fact, the popular
novel that the public calls healthy is always a thoroughly
unhealthy production; and what the public call an unhealthy novel
is always a beautiful and healthy work of art.
I need hardly say that I am not, for a single moment, complaining
that the public and the public press misuse these words. I do not
see how, with their lack of comprehension of what Art is, they
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