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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: the drama within the last ten or fifteen years, it is important to
point out that this advance is entirely due to a few individual
artists refusing to accept the popular want of taste as their
standard, and refusing to regard Art as a mere matter of demand and
supply. With his marvellous and vivid personality, with a style
that has really a true colour-element in it, with his extraordinary
power, not over mere mimicry but over imaginative and intellectual
creation, Mr Irving, had his sole object been to give the public
what they wanted, could have produced the commonest plays in the
commonest manner, and made as much success and money as a man could
possibly desire. But his object was not that. His object was to
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