THE PREFACE

Let me introduce myself quoating an extraordinary XIX novel...

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 im- 
moral 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 Ro- 
manticism is the rage of Caliban not 
seeing his own face hi a glass. 

 The moral life of man forms part of the subject
matter of the artist, but the morality of art con- 
sists 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. 

"The picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.