|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: not without its advantages. But it is said to be a somewhat dull
occupation, and it certainly does not lead to much beyond a kind of
ostentatious obscurity. The only form of lying that is absolutely
beyond reproach is lying for its own sake, and the highest
development of this is, as we have already pointed out, Lying in
Art. Just as those who do not love Plato more than Truth cannot
pass beyond the threshold of the Academe, so those who do not love
Beauty more than Truth never know the inmost shrine of Art. The
solid stolid British intellect lies in the desert sands like the
Sphinx in Flaubert's marvellous tale, and fantasy, LA CHIMERE,
dances round it, and calls to it with her false, flute-toned voice.
|
