| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, 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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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying
through the Western gate!
Away! Or it may be too late to climb their silent
silver cars!
See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled
towers, and the rain
Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs
with tears the wannish day.
What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with
uncouth gestures and unclean,
Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: well immediately be said that his real experience of these few
hours put on, in that belated vision--for he scarce went to bed
till morning--the aspect that is most to our purpose.
He then knew more or less how he had been affected--he but half
knew at the time. There had been plenty to affect him even after,
as has been said, they had shaken down; for his consciousness,
though muffled, had its sharpest moments during this passage, a
marked drop into innocent friendly Bohemia. They then had put
their elbows on the table, deploring the premature end of their two
or three dishes; which they had tried to make up with another
bottle while Chad joked a little spasmodically, perhaps even a
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