The Silver Case

He drew on his gold-tipped cigarette and peered up at the night sky. As he examined the stars he exhaled the smooth and toxic smoke. Taking another breath, he leaned back against the window-sill and smiled...

"A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?"

He put down the case, and exhaled through his nostrils.

"Really Dorian, you honestly consider these vile things so pleasurable? Perhaps your tongue is desensitized to bitter tastes?"

He turned and glanced at Andrew...

"I'm sure such wisdom is derived from your personal experiences!"

Silent for a moment, as if those words had not been heard, Andrew flung himself down on the bed and slowly turned the pages of a magazine, seemingly focused on the content of the article...

"Oh is that humour I hear from my dear Dorian's scarlet lips? Fine then, hand me the case."

He rolled across the tall padded bed and grabbed the dainty silver case.

"My sad friend, they should call you "Fickle" rather than Andrew, I think it becomes you. After all, fickle people are exquisitely spontaneous in nature, but they can be rather tedious like you, my love. I lament for your former lovers, although they are rather foolish in considering you a fine prospect."

They both laughed...

"A fine prospect? ... I'm flattered you think that my former lovers considered me such, but I must agree, I do pity them... they have not the strength to tolerate my intense idiosyncrasies... it seems as though you are one of those rare creatures that can do so, my love."

Dorian sniggred...

"The operative word being here is tolerate, my beloved... I tolerate your idiosyncrasies..."

Preface

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 immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

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

All art is quite useless.

(In honour of Oscar Wilde)