Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen and Co edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org INTENTIONS BY OSCAR WILDE * * * * * METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON * * * * * _First Published_, _at 1s. net_, _in 1913_ * * * * * _This Book was First Published_ _1891_ _Second Edition_ _1894_ _First Published_ (_Third Edition_) _by Methuen _1908_ and Co._ _Fourth Edition_ _1909_ _Fifth Edition_ _1911_ * * * * * DEDICATED TO MRS. CAREW BY THE AUTHOR’S LITERARY EXECUTOR * * * * * CONTENTS PAGE THE DECAY OF LYING 1 PEN, PENCIL, AND POISON 57 THE CRITIC AS ARTIST 95 THE TRUTH OF MASKS 221 THE DECAY OF LYING: AN OBSERVATION _A DIALOGUE_. _Persons_: _Cyril and_ _Vivian_. _Scene_: _the Library of a country_ _house in Nottinghamshire_. CYRIL (_coming in through the open window from the terrace_). My dear Vivian, don’t coop yourself up all day in the library. It is a perfectly lovely afternoon. The air is exquisite. There is a mist upon the woods, like the purple bloom upon a plum. Let us go and lie on the grass and smoke cigarettes and enjoy Nature. VIVIAN. Enjoy Nature! I am glad to say that I have entirely lost that faculty. People tell us that Art makes us love Nature more than we loved her before; that it reveals her secrets to us; and that after a careful study of Corot and Constable we see things in her that had escaped our observation. My own experience is that the more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition. Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects. It is fortunate for us, however, that Nature is so imperfect, as otherwise we should have no art at all. Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach Nature her proper place. As for the infinite variety of Nature, that is a pure myth. It is not to be found in Nature herself. It resides in the imagination, or fancy, or cultivated blindness of the man who looks at her.