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Oscar Wilde Calendar-Stuart Mason, Oscar Wilde · The Importance of Being Earnest

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  Speaker 1: Section one of the Oscar Wild Calendar. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: The Oscar Wild Calendar by Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason.
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  Speaker 1: Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives
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  Speaker 1: by reminding us that each day that passes is the
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  Speaker 1: anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event. Oscar Wilde The Oscar
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  Speaker 1: Wild Calendar a quotation from the works of Oscar Wilde
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  Speaker 1: for every day in the year, with some unrecorded sayings
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  Speaker 1: selected by Stuart Mason. Oscar Wilde, poet, dramatist and man
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  Speaker 1: of letters, author of Salomee, The Soul of Man, The
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  Speaker 1: Importance of Being, Earnest, Intentions, Day Profundis, and other beautiful works.
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  Speaker 1: Was born at twenty one Westland Road, Dublin on October sixteenth,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four. Educated at Portra Royal School, Enna, Scillin,
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  Speaker 1: he obtained a scholarship at Trinity College, Dublin, and there
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  Speaker 1: won the Berkley Gold Medal for Greek in eighteen seventy four.
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  Speaker 1: Sometime Demi of Maudlin College in Oxford. He took a
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  Speaker 1: first class in Classical Moderations in eighteen seventy six and
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  Speaker 1: a first class in Litterai humannioures in eighteen seventy eight,
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  Speaker 1: gaining in this year the Newdigate Prize for English Verse
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  Speaker 1: with his poem Ravenna. He died on November thirtieth, nineteen hundred,
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  Speaker 1: at the Hotel Dalsace, thirteen Rue des Bozar, Paris. His
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  Speaker 1: body was buried on December third in the cemetery of Banyux.
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  Speaker 1: On July twentieth, nineteen o nine, it was transferred to
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  Speaker 1: par Lachise, where a monument is to be set up
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  Speaker 1: to his memory, and alien tiers will fill for him
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  Speaker 1: Pity's long broken urn. For his mourners will be outcast men,
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  Speaker 1: and outcasts always mourn January. One. Art has no influence
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  Speaker 1: upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is
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  Speaker 1: superbly sterile. Two. The books that the world calls immoral
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  Speaker 1: are books that show the world its own shame. Three
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  Speaker 1: An Ideal Husband, produced eighteen ninety five. Truth, passion, and power.
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  Speaker 1: There are no better things than these. In fiction four,
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  Speaker 1: at the New York Custom House, I have nothing to
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  Speaker 1: declare except my genius. Five, There is no mystery so
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  Speaker 1: great as misery. Six. Death is a great, great price
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  Speaker 1: to pay for a red rose. Yet love is better
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  Speaker 1: than life. And what is the heart of a bird
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  Speaker 1: compared to the heart of a man? Seven? The importance
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  Speaker 1: of being earnest revived nineteen o two. Why should not
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  Speaker 1: degrees be granted for good acting? Are they not given
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  Speaker 1: to those who misunderstand Plato and mistranslate Aristotle? And should
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  Speaker 1: the artist be passed over? Eight? The best amongst the
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  Speaker 1: poor and never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious.
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  Speaker 1: They are quite right to be so. Nine. A map
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  Speaker 1: of the world that does not include utopia is not
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  Speaker 1: worth glancing at. Ten. To disagree with three fourths of
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  Speaker 1: the British public on all points is one of the
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  Speaker 1: first elements of sel, one of the deepest consolations in
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  Speaker 1: all moments of spiritual doubt. Eleven. Love is all very
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  Speaker 1: well in its way, but friendship is much higher. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: nothing in the world is either nobler or rarer than
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  Speaker 1: a devoted friendship. Twelve. Three addresses always inspire confidence even
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  Speaker 1: in tradesmen. Thirteen A bishop keeps on saying at the
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  Speaker 1: age of eighty what he was told to say when
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  Speaker 1: he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence,
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  Speaker 1: he always looks absolutely delightful. Fourteen. Leamn villiers do'n le
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  Speaker 1: cour set poor la rejunier caso luis c vi platon
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  Speaker 1: sei les junesse de saucrat Fifteen. As soon as people
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  Speaker 1: are old enough to know better, they don't know anything
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  Speaker 1: at all. Sixteen. The one charm of marriage is that
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  Speaker 1: it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. Seventeen.
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  Speaker 1: American girls are pretty and charming, little oases of pretty
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  Speaker 1: unreasonableness in a vast desert of practical common sense. Eighteen.
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  Speaker 1: With an evening coat and a white tie, anybody, even
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  Speaker 1: a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds
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  Speaker 1: exactly the same opinions. Twenty It is monstrous to compare
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  Speaker 1: doctor Talmage to the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. It is
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  Speaker 1: like comparing clown to pantaloon. Twenty one. It is very
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  Speaker 1: vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist.
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  Speaker 1: It produces a false impression. Twenty two. In war, the
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  Speaker 1: strong makes slaves of the weak, and in peace the
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  Speaker 1: rich make slaves of the poor. Twenty three. The truth
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  Speaker 1: is rarely pure and never simple. Twenty four. The value
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  Speaker 1: of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the
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  Speaker 1: sincerity of the man who expresses it. Twenty five. The
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  Speaker 1: opinions of the old on matters of art are of
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  Speaker 1: no value whatsoever. Twenty six. We spend our days, each
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  Speaker 1: one of us, in looking for the secret of life. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the secret of life is in art. Twenty seven. Surely
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  Speaker 1: providence can resist temptation by this time. Twenty eight. The
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  Speaker 1: mind of the thoroughly well informed man is a dreadful thing.
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  Speaker 1: It is like a break a brac shop, all monsters
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  Speaker 1: and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. Twenty nine.
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  Speaker 1: Most people know that, in the concoction of a modern novel,
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  Speaker 1: crime is a more important ingredient than culture. Thirty A
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  Speaker 1: thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
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  Speaker 1: Thirty one. The soul is a terrible reality that can
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  Speaker 1: be bought and sold and bartered away. End of Second
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  Speaker 1: Action I, Section two of the Oscar Wild Calendar by
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  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. February one, The Soul of Man
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  Speaker 1: under Socialism, published eighteen ninety one. Socialism would relieve us
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  Speaker 1: from that sordid necessity of living for others, which, in
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  Speaker 1: the present condition of things presses hardly upon almost everybody. Two.
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  Speaker 1: Young men want to be faithful and are not. Old
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  Speaker 1: men want to be faithless and cannot. Three. Lady Wilde
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  Speaker 1: died eighteen ninety six. All women become like their mothers.
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  Speaker 1: That is their tragedy. No man does, that's his. Four.
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  Speaker 1: There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are
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  Speaker 1: invariably made too soon. Five. Details are the only things
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  Speaker 1: that interest. Six. One should absorb the color of life,
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  Speaker 1: but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar. Seven.
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  Speaker 1: To turn truth into a paradox is not difficult, But
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  Speaker 1: George Medodith makes all his paradoxes truths. Eight. Ruskin in
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  Speaker 1: prose and Browning in poetry were the first who drew
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  Speaker 1: for us the workings of the artist's soul, the first
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  Speaker 1: who led us from the painting or statue to the
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  Speaker 1: hand that fashioned it and the brain that gave it. Life. Nine.
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  Speaker 1: A really great artist can always transform the limitations of
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  Speaker 1: his art into valuable qualities. Ten. An engagement should come
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  Speaker 1: upon a young girl as a surprise, Pleasant or unpleasant
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  Speaker 1: as the case may be, it is hardly a matter
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  Speaker 1: that she could be allowed to arrange for herself. Eleven.
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  Speaker 1: Production of Salome in Paris, eighteen ninety six. The appreciation
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  Speaker 1: of literature is a question of temperament, not of teaching. Twelve.
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  Speaker 1: The accumulation of wealth creates the petty thief and puts
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  Speaker 1: him in a bamboo cage. It creates the big thief
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  Speaker 1: and sets him on a throne of white jade. Thirteen
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  Speaker 1: The Ballad of Reading Jail, published eighteen ninety eight. Collected
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  Speaker 1: Works of Oscar Wilde, published nineteen oh eight. Jemi toumont
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  Speaker 1: genie d'n marvie ai miuur montalent do'r meyeuvres fourteen The
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  Speaker 1: Importance of Being Earnest, produced eighteen ninety five. The first
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  Speaker 1: act is ingenious, the second beautiful, the third abominably clever.
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  Speaker 1: Fifteen Lots of people act well, but very few people
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  Speaker 1: talk well, which shows that talking is much the more
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  Speaker 1: difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing.
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  Speaker 1: Also sixteen, Each time that one loves is the only
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  Speaker 1: time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not
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  Speaker 1: alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. Seventeen. The
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  Speaker 1: English public, as a mass takes no interest in a
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  Speaker 1: work of art until it is told that the work
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  Speaker 1: in question is immoral. Eighteen. No crime is vulgar, but
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  Speaker 1: all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others. Nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: The old believe everything, The middle aged suspect everything, The
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  Speaker 1: young no everything. Twenty Lady windermeze Fan, produced eighteen ninety two.
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  Speaker 1: The aim of social comedy is to mirror the manners,
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  Speaker 1: not to reform the models of its day. Twenty one.
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  Speaker 1: Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief Skepticism is the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of faith twenty two Salomee, published in Paris and London,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three. Wherever there is a man who exercises authority,
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  Speaker 1: there is a man who resists authority. Twenty three. Dey Profundis,
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  Speaker 1: published nineteen o five. Pain is the lord of this world,
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  Speaker 1: Nor is there any one who escapes from its net.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty four. The majority of people spoil their lives by
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  Speaker 1: an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism. Twenty five. We can have
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  Speaker 1: in life but one great experience at best, and the
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  Speaker 1: secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often
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  Speaker 1: as possible. Twenty six. When a woman marries again, it
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  Speaker 1: is because she detested her first husband. When a man
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  Speaker 1: marries again, it is because he adored his first wife.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty seven. Ellen Terry will always be young. She has
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  Speaker 1: the art of putting the burden of her years upon
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  Speaker 1: her contemporaries in age. Twenty eight. Even business should have
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  Speaker 1: a picturesque background. Twenty nine To lose one parent may
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  Speaker 1: be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.
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  Speaker 1: End of section two Section three of the Oscar wild
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  Speaker 1: Calendar by Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. March one, The Marquis
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  Speaker 1: of Queensbury was thrown away on his family. Two. It
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  Speaker 1: is a dangerous thing to reform any one. Three pala
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  Speaker 1: bonaire see two pa la bonnaire, la plaisiere, ilfou voulain
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  Speaker 1: tou jour le plut rajik. Four Puritanism is never so
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  Speaker 1: offensive and destructive as when it deals with art matters. Five,
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  Speaker 1: Romance with Us is a beautiful and mutual misunderstanding. Romance
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  Speaker 1: in America is a very different thing. It is an
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  Speaker 1: intellectual friendship. Six. One touch of nature may make the
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  Speaker 1: whole world kin, but two touches of nature will destroy
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  Speaker 1: any work of art. Seven. The British Cook is a
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  Speaker 1: foolish woman who should be turned for her iniquities into
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  Speaker 1: a pillar of salt, which she never knows how to use. Eight.
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  Speaker 1: Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When we
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  Speaker 1: are happy, we are always good. But when we are good,
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  Speaker 1: we are not always happy. Nine. What between the duties
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  Speaker 1: expected of one during one's lifetime and the duties exacted
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  Speaker 1: from one after one's death. Land has ceased to be
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  Speaker 1: either a prophet or a pleasure. It gives one position
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  Speaker 1: and prevents one from keeping it up. Ten. The stage
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  Speaker 1: is the refuge of the two fascinating Eleven. The real
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  Speaker 1: tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing
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  Speaker 1: but self denial. Twelve. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better.
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  Speaker 1: They wound, but they are better. Thirteen. Relations are a
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  Speaker 1: tedious pack of people who haven't got the The remotest
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about
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  Speaker 1: when to die. Fourteen. Women treat us just as humanity
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  Speaker 1: treats its gods. They worship us and are always bothering
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  Speaker 1: us to do something for them. Fifteen. It is only
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  Speaker 1: the sacred things that are worth touching. Sixteen. When one
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  Speaker 1: is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self.
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  Speaker 1: One always ends by deceiving others. Seventeen. Blue books are
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  Speaker 1: generally dull reading, but blue books on Ireland have always
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  Speaker 1: been interesting. They form the record of one of the
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  Speaker 1: great tragedies of modern Europe. In them, England has written
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  Speaker 1: down her indictment against her self and has given to
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  Speaker 1: the world the history of her shame. Eighteen. Faithfulnesses to
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  Speaker 1: the emotional life. What consistency is to the life of
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  Speaker 1: the intellect? Simply a confession of failure. Nineteen. It is
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  Speaker 1: a curious thing about the game of marriage. The wives
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  Speaker 1: hold all the honors and invariably lose the odd trick.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty There are only five women in London worth talking to,
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  Speaker 1: and two of these can't be admitted into decent society.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty one. Nowadays people know the price of everything and
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  Speaker 1: the value of nothing twenty two. All the results of
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  Speaker 1: the mistakes of governments are quite admirable. Twenty three. To
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  Speaker 1: know anything about one's self, one must know all about others.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty four. Letter on prison reform in Daily Chronicle, eighteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety eight. The first and perhaps the most difficult task
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  Speaker 1: is to humanize the governors of prisons, to civilize the warders,
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  Speaker 1: and to christianize the chaplains. Twenty five. It was in
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  Speaker 1: vain that the Middle Ages strove to guard the buried
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  Speaker 1: spirit of progress. When the dawn of the Greek spirit arose,
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  Speaker 1: the sepulcher was empty, the grave clothes laid aside. Humanity
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  Speaker 1: had risen from the dead. Twenty six. If one hears
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  Speaker 1: bad music, it is one's duty to drown it. In
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  Speaker 1: conversation twenty seven. In in his very Rejection of Art,
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  Speaker 1: Walt Whitman is an artist. If poetry has passed him by,
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  Speaker 1: philosophy will take note of him. Twenty eight. It is
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  Speaker 1: only style that makes a school. Twenty nine. Women represent
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  Speaker 1: the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent
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  Speaker 1: the triumph of mind over morals. Thirty Judges, like the
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  Speaker 1: criminal classes, have their lighter moments thirty one good novelists
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  Speaker 1: are much rarer than good sons. End of section three
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  Speaker 1: Section four of the Oscar wild Calendar by Oscar Wilde,
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  Speaker 1: edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. April one. The world has been made by
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  Speaker 1: fools so that wise men should live in it. Two.
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  Speaker 1: Popularity is the crown of Laurel, which the world puts
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  Speaker 1: on bad art. Three. Agitators are a set of interfering,
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  Speaker 1: meddling people who come down to some perfectly contented class
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  Speaker 1: of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them.
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  Speaker 1: That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary.
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  Speaker 1: Four La question arriva suventterie blement lentmme a pre lare prince. Five.
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  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde arrested eighteen ninety five. A man cannot be
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  Speaker 1: too careful in the choice of his enemies. Six. Art
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  Speaker 1: is the one thing which death cannot harm. Seven Constance
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  Speaker 1: Wilde died eighteen ninety eight. Married life is merely a habit.
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  Speaker 1: Eight Even in prison, a man can be quite free.
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  Speaker 1: His soul can be free, his personality can be untroubled,
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  Speaker 1: he can be at peace. Nine. There should be a
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  Speaker 1: law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write
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  Speaker 1: about art. Ten it has been said of Swinburne that
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  Speaker 1: he is a master of language, But with still greater truth,
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  Speaker 1: it may be said that language is his master. Eleven
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  Speaker 1: to the claims of conformity, no man may yield and
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  Speaker 1: remain free. Twelve The bad popes loved beauty, all almost
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  Speaker 1: as passionately, nay, with as much passion as the good
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  Speaker 1: pope's hated thought. Thirteen to the wickedness of the papacy,
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  Speaker 1: humanity owes much. The goodness of the papacy owes a
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  Speaker 1: terrible debt to humanity. Fourteen. Those characteristic British faces that,
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  Speaker 1: once seen, are never remembered. Fifteen All authority is quite degrading.
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  Speaker 1: Sixteen The old should neither be seen nor heard Seventeen.
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  Speaker 1: Ugliness was first introduced into art when the first bust
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  Speaker 1: or portrait of a man was shown. Eighteen. Oscar Wilde
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  Speaker 1: committed for trial eighteen ninety five. Bad manners make a
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  Speaker 1: journalist nineteen Sir William Wilde died eighteen seventy six. A
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  Speaker 1: Woman of No Importance produced eighteen ninety three. There is
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  Speaker 1: not a single dramatic critic in London, who would deliberately
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: set himself to misrepresent the work of any dramatist, unless,
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  Speaker 1: of course, he personally disliked the dramatist twenty conceit is
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  Speaker 1: the privilege of the creative twenty one. Journalism is unreadable
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  Speaker 1: and literature is unread twenty two. Formerly we used to
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  Speaker 1: canonize our great men. Nowadays we vulgarize them. Twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: When art surrenders her imaginative medium, she surrenders everything. Twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything
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  Speaker 1: that one cannot talk about after dinner. Twenty five. Elementary
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  Speaker 1: education insists on the population of places that no one
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  Speaker 1: ever wants to go to, and makes one familiar with
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  Speaker 1: the lives of people who probably never existed. Twenty six.
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  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde baptized at Saint Mark's Dublin eighteen fifty five.
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  Speaker 1: His trial at the Old Bailey began eighteen ninety five.
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  Speaker 1: Society often forgives the criminal, it never forgives the dreamer.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty seven. Scandals used to lend charm or at least interest,
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  Speaker 1: to a man. Now they crush him. Twenty eight. The
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: middle classes air their model prejudices over their gross dinner
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: tables and whisper about what they call the profligacies of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: their betters, in order to try to pretend that they
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  Speaker 1: are in smart society and are on intimate terms with
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  Speaker 1: the people they slander. Twenty nine It is enough for
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  Speaker 1: a man to have distinction and brains for every common
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  Speaker 1: tongue to wager against him. Thirty Though one can dine
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  Speaker 1: in New York, one could not dwell there. End of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: section four Section five of the Oscar wild Calendar by
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. May one, Oscar Wilde's first trial
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: ended in the disagreement of the jury eighteen ninety five.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: The only really humanizing influence in prison is the influence
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  Speaker 1: of the prisoners. Two. There is no essential incongruity between
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  Speaker 1: crime and culture. Three. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone
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  Speaker 1: who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is
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  Speaker 1: through disobedience that progress has been made. Through disobedience and
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  Speaker 1: through rebellion. Section four. Love art for its own sake,
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  Speaker 1: and then all things that you need will be added
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  Speaker 1: to you. Five. The only form of fiction in which
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  Speaker 1: real characters do not seem out of place is history. Six.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: To misquote English poetry is a privilege reserved for Missus
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: malaprop Misquoting Shakespeare is a privilege reserved specially for our
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  Speaker 1: Englam actors. Seven. Oscar Wilde released on bail, eighteen ninety five.
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  Speaker 1: Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always
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  Speaker 1: be estimated by what he does. Eight. It is only
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  Speaker 1: mediocrates and old maids who consider it a grievance to
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  Speaker 1: be misunderstood. Nine. A cigarette is a perfect type of
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied.
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  Speaker 1: Ten Why should the poor be grateful for the crumbs
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  Speaker 1: that fall from the rich man's table? They should be
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  Speaker 1: seated at the board and are beginning to know it.
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  Speaker 1: Eleven A man can be happy with any woman as
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  Speaker 1: long as he does not love her. Twelve. With the
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  Speaker 1: coming of the English art in Ireland came to an end.
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  Speaker 1: The artistic sentiment of Ireland is not, however, dead, in
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  Speaker 1: the hearts of our sons and daughters. Thirteen. Ideal dramatic
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  Speaker 1: criticism is unqualified appreciation. Fourteen Moderation is a fatal thing.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is as good as a feast. Fifteen. Fashion is a
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it every six months. Sixteen. When a man says that
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: he has exhausted life, one knows that life has exhausted him. Seventeen.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: In married households, the champagne is rarely of a first
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: rate brand. Eighteen. In prose, at any rate, correctness should
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: always be subordinate to artistic effect and musical cadence. Nineteen.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde released from prison eighteen ninety seven. The narrow
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: confines of the prison cell seemed to suit the Sonnet's
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: scanty plot of ground twenty La sauffons a possible e
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: peteretre necessaire me la ponvreta la miizere voila sequie terrible
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: solas salil lambdolm. Twenty one. Selfishness is not living as
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: one wishes to live. It is asking others to live
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Twenty two. Oscar
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Wilde's second trial began eighteen ninety five. Revival of a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Woman of No Importance nineteen o seven. It is absurd
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that there should be one law for men and another
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: for women. There should be no law for either. Twenty three.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: We live in an age where unnecessary things are our
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: only necessities. Twenty four. To get back one's youth, one
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: has merely to repeat one's follies twenty five Oscar Wilde
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: convicted eighteen ninety five. Prison regulations may enforce plain living,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: but cannot prevent high thinking, nor in any way limit
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: or constrain the freedom of a man's soul. Twenty six.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I shall be an enigma to the world of pleasure,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: but a mouthpiece for the world of pain. Twenty seven.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: for the people. Twenty eight. Letter on some cruelties of
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: prison life. In Daily Chronicle eighteen ninety seven. A child
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: is utterly contaminated by prison life. But the contaminating influence
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: is not that of the prisoners. It is that of
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the whole prison system. Twenty nine. Marriage of Oscar Wilde
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to Constance Lloyd eighteen eighty four. Every man of position
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is married nowadays. Bachelors are not fashionable anymore. Thirty There
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies. Thirty one.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: As long as war is looked upon as wicked, it
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. End of
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: section five Section six of the Oscar wild Calendar by
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. June one. In the summer term,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Oxford teaches the exquisite art of idleness, one of the
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: most important things that any university can teach. Two. The
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: possession of private property is very often extremely demoralizing, and
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that is, of course one of the reasons why socialism
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: wants to get rid of them institution. In fact, property
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: is really a nuisance. Three. Laughter is not at all
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the best ending for one. Four. A mother who doesn't
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: part with a daughter every season has no real affection. Five.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: over the soul and body alike. The first is called
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the prince. The second is called the pope. The third
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is called the people. Six there are two worlds. The
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: one exists and is never talked about. It is called
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the real world because there is no need to talk
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: about it in order to see it. The other is
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the world of art. One must talk about that, because
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: otherwise it would not exist. Seven. On a lazy June evening,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: no more delightful companion can be found than a poet
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: who has the sweetest of voices and absolutely nothing to say. Eight.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Behind the perfection of a man's style must lie the
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: passion of a man's soul. Nine. If our descendants do
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: not read Dickens, they will miss a great source of amusement.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: And if they do, we hope they will not model
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: their style upon his. Of this, however, there is but
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: little danger, for no age ever borows the slang of
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: its predecessor. Ten. Our husbands would really forget our existence
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: if we didn't naggart them from time to time, just
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: to remind them that we have a perfect legal right
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to do so. Eleven. To convey ideas through the medium
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of images has always been the aim of those who
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: are artists as well as thinkers. In literature. Twelve. Enthusiasm
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: for beauty is the secret of Hellenism, and desire for
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: creation is the secret of life. Thirteen. In an evil moment,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the philanthropist made his appearance and brought with him the
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: mischievous idea of government. Fourteen. Weirdiness and war are the
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: results of an artificial society based upon capital. Fifteen. All
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: influence is immoral, immoral from the scientific point of view,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: because to influence a person is to give him one's
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: own soul. Sixteen. Life is too complex a thing to
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: be settled by hard and fast rules. Seventeen. One wants
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: something that will encourage conversation at the end of the season,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: when everyone has practically said whatever they had to say,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: which in most cases was probably not much. Eighteen. The
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: evolution of man is slaw. The injustice of men is
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: great nineteen. The terror of society, which is the basis
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of religion. These are the two things that govern us.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Twenty The Picture of Dorian Gray published aieen ninety. What
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: the public calls an unhealthy novel is always a beautiful
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: and healthy work of art. Twenty One. Women have no
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: appreciation of good looks, at least good women have not.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Twenty two. The sphere of art and the sphere of
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: ethics are absolutely distinct and separate. Twenty three. The most
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: tragic fact in the whole of the French Revolution is
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: not that Mary Antoinette was killed for being a queen,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: but that the starved peasant of the Vaughn Die voluntarily
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: went out to die for the hideous cause of feudalism.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Twenty four. To be born, or at any rate bred
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, seems
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to display a contempt for the ordinary decis sees of
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: family life. That reminds one of the worst excesses of
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the French Revolution. Twenty five. The only difference between a
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a little longer. Twenty six. Oscar Wilde recited his nudigate
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: prize poem Ravenna at Oxford eighteen seventy eight. Dear aut
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: vaut Land here lom en von louver Redin twenty seven.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Twenty eight. In examinations, the foolish ask questions that the
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: wise cannot answer. Twenty nine. There is something terribly morbid
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the color, the beauty, the joy of Life. Thirty poems
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: by Oscar Wilde, published eighteen eighty one. One man's poetry
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: is another man's poison. End of section six Section seven
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of the Oscar wild Calendar by Oscar Wilde, edited by
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: July one. Romantic art deals with the exception and with
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the individual. Two. The east end is a very important problem.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: It is the problem of slavery, and we try to
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: solve it by amusing the slaves. Three there is no
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: literary public in England for anything except newspapers, primers, and
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: in encyclopedias. Four. In America, the president reigns for four years,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and journalism governs forever and ever. Five. Never speak disrespectfully
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of society. Only people who can't get into it do that. Six.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: to people who are not artists. Seven. To call an
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: artist morbid because he deals with morbidity as his subject
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: matter is as silly as if one called Shakespeare mad
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: because he wrote King Lear. Eight If the English had
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: had any idea of what a great poet Shelley really was,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: they would have fallen on him with tooth and nail
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: and made his life as unbearable to him as they
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: possibly could. Nine thousands of excellent and really earnest philanthropists
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: would be absolutely thrown upon the rates if we adopted
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the view that nobody should be allowed to meddle in
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: what does not concern him. Ten The home seems to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: be the proper sphere for the man. Eleven Umbrellas are
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: not allowed in the Vatican since the Pope's walking stick
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: burst into bloom. Twelve What captivity was to the Jews,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: exile has been to the Irish. Thirteen Only those should
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: sing of death. Whose song is stronger than death is Fourteen.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Starvation and not sin, is the parent of modern crime.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Fifteen So complet lately has man's personality been absorbed by
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: his possessions that the English law has always treated offenses
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: against man's property with far more severity than offenses against
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: his person and property is still the test of complete citizenship.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Sixteen Men marry because they are tired Women because they
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: are curious, both are disappointed seventeen. If one tells the truth,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: one is sure sooner or later to be found out. Eighteen. Whistler,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: with all his faults, was never guilty of writing a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: line of poetry. Nineteen. The realization of oneself is the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: prime aim of life, and to realize oneself through pleasure
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: is finer than to do so through pain twenty Oscar
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Wilde's Body translated to pere La Chase nineteen o nine.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Assertion is at once the duty and the privilege of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the artist. Twenty one. The work of art is to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: dominate the spectator. The spectator is not to dominate art.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Twenty two. To be great is to be misunderstood. Twenty three.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: When I see a monstrous sulip with four wonderful petals
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: in someone else's garden, I am impelled to grow a
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: monstrous tulip with five wonderful petals. But that is no
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: reason why someone else should grow a tulip with only
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: three petals. Twenty four. Realism is only a background. It
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: cannot form an artistic motive for a play that is
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to be a work of art. Twenty five. There is
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Books are well written or badly written. Twenty six. There
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: is only one thing in the world worse than being
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: talked about, and that is not being talked about. Twenty seven.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: It is safer to beg than to take, but it
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: is finer to take than to beg. Twenty eight. Beauty
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: real beauty ends where an intellectual expression begins. Twenty nine.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: The Lord's temporal say nothing, the Lord's spiritual have nothing
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: say and says it. Thirty Oscar Wilde's Bankruptcy and Old
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen o six. Most people become bankrupt through having invested
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: oneself over poetry is an honor. Thirty one. Chuang Zu,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: whose name must carefully be pronounced as it is not written,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: was born in the fourth century before Christ. The publication
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: of his book in English two thousand years after his
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: death is obviously premature. End of section seven Section eight
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: of the Oscar wild Calendar by Oscar Wilde, edited by
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: August one. Our climate has so degenerated of late that
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: there is no reason at all why a motto perfectly
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: sued for February should not be equally appropriate when August
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: has set in with its usual severity. Two Oscar Wilde
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: sailed on his second visit to America eighteen eighty three.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: America takes the ignorant peasant of Europe and teaches him
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the meaning of the word liberty. Three. Damien was christ
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Like when he went out to live with the lepers,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: because in such service he realized fully what was best
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: in him. But he was not more christ Like than
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Wagner when he realized his soul in music, or than
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Shelley when he realized his soul in song. Four Peter
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: has no rival in his own sphere, and he has
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: escaped disciples. And this not because he has not been imitated,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: but because in art so fine as his, there is
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: something that, in its essence is inimitable. Five. One should
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: not be too severed on English novels. They are the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. Six. The basis of
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: every scandal is an immodal certainty. Seven. The man who
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: could call a spade a spade should be compelled to
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: use one. Eight those who reject the battle are more
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: deeply wounded than those who take part in it. Nine.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: The past is of no importance. The present is of
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: no importance. It is with the future that we have
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: to deal for the past is what man should not
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: have been. The present is what man ought not to be.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: The future is what artists are. Ten. Life is not
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a speculation. It is a sacrament. Its ideal is love,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Its purification is sacrifice. Eleven. One must be serious about
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: something if one wants to have any amusement in life. Twelve.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Books of poetry by young writers are usually promisory notes
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: that are never met. Thirteen. Writing to newspapers has a
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: deteriorating influence on style. Fourteen. Free criticism is as unknown
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: as free trade. Fifteen. Where there is no exaggeration, there
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: is no love, and where there is no love, there
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: is no understanding. Sixteen. A grand passion is the privilege
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: of people who have nothing to do. That is the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: one use of the idle classes of a country. Seventeen.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: think it right. Eighteen. When private property is abolished, there
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: will be no necessity for crime, no demand for it.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: It will cease to exist. Nineteen. If you pretend to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: stupidity of optimism twenty vera produced at New York eighteen
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: eighty three. It is a curious fact that the worst
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: work is always done with the best intentions, and that
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: people are never so trivial as when they take themselves
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: very seriously. Twenty one. The proper basis for manage is
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: a mutual misunderstanding. Twenty two. Nature is always behind the age.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: It takes a great artist to be thoroughly modern twenty three.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: It is not always to high aim and lofty ambition
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: that the prize is given twenty four. Writers of poetical
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: prose are rarely good poets. Twenty five. It is better
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to have a permanent income than to be fascinating twenty six.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: There are some artistic temperaments that should never come to maturity,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: that should always remain in the region of promise, and
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: should dread autumn with its harvesting more than winter its frosts.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Twenty seven. Bad people are, from the point of view
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: of art, fascinating studies. They represent color, variety, and strangeness.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Bad people stir one's imagination twenty eight. It is much
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: to have sympathy with thought. Twenty nine. The only pleasant
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: things to pay are compliments. They are the only things
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: we can pay. Thirty The function of the artist is
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: to invent, not to chronicle. Thirty one. A community is
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment than
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: it is by the occasional occurrence of crime. End of
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: section eight Section nine of the Oscar wild Calendar by
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. September one. It is proper that
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: a limitation should be placed on action. It is not
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: proper that limitation should be placed on art two. New
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: edition of Oscar Wilde's Works, published nineteen o nine. If
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: my work pleases the few, I am gratified. If it
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: does not, it causes me no pain. As for the mob,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: is far too easy. Three. There are many things that
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: we would throw away if we were not afraid that
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: others might pick them. Up. Four it is in more
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: or to use private property in order to alleviate the
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: horrible evils that result from the institution of private property.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Five it is absurd to have a hard and fast
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: More than half of modern culture depends on what one
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: shouldn't read. Six. The longer I live, the more keenly
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: is not good enough for us. Seven. Every great movement
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: comes to an end at the birth of its founder. Eight.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Nothing looks so much like innocence as an indiscretion. Nine.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: A high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: very much, either to one's own health or one's happiness. Ten.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary charm in them sometimes Eleven it is personalities,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: not principles, that move the age. Twelve. To toil for
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: a hard master is bitter, but to have no master
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to toil for is more bitter still. Thirteen it is
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: pleasanter to have the entree to Balzac society than to
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: receive cards from all the duchesses in Mayfair. Fourteen. Experience
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: is of no ethical value. It is merely the name
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: men give to their mistakes. Fifteen. Ordinary riches can be
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. Sixteen. There is
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: hardly a single person in the House of Commons worth painting,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: though many of them would be the better for a
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: little whitewashing Seventeen. Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: it is always from the noblest motives. Eighteen. To approve
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: or to disapprove of anything is an absurd attitude to
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: take towards life. We are not sent into the world
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to air our moral prejudices. Nineteen. Beauty, like wisdom, loves
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: the lonely worshiper twenty The real drawback to marriage is
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: that it makes one unselfish twenty one. The reason we
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: all like to think well of others is that we
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: are afraid for ourselves twenty two. Women are meant to
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: be loved, not to be understood. Twenty three. It is
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: always difficult, even for the most modest of us, to
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: remember that other people do not know quite as much
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: as one does oneself. Twenty four. Traveling in a pullman
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: car is the perfection of luxury, but one has no
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: more privacy than if one sat in an arm chair
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: in Piccadilly. Twenty five. The man who possesses a permanent
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: address and whose name is to be found in the
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: directory is necessarily limited and localized. Only the tramp has
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: absolute liberty of living. Twenty six. Are not the rich
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: and the poor brothers? Aye? And the name of the
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: rich brother is Cain. Twenty seven. Everybody pays penalty for
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: peeping through key holes, and the keyhole and the backstairs
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: are essential parts of the method of the modern biographer.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Twenty eight. I have taken to photography. What an art
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: it is. I have been photographing cows in the Villa Borghese.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Cows like being photographed, and unlike architecture, they don't move.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Twenty nine. It is only by not paying one's bills
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: that one can hope to live in the memory of
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the commercial classes. Thirty Death and vulgarity are the only
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: two facts that one cannot explain away. End of section
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: nine Section ten of the Oscar wild Calendar by Oscar Wilde,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: edited by to Mason. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: public domain. October one. The illiterate classes never read anything
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: except newspapers. Two A man can paint like Velasquez and
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: yet be as dull as possible. Three. The English public
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: likes tediousness, and likes things to be explained to it
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: in a tedious way. Four anybody can be good in
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the country. There are no temptations there. That is the
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: reason why people who live out of town are so
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: absolutely uncivilized. Five. To look wise is quite as good
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: as understanding a thing, and very much easier. Six. A
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: as other people are looking on. Seven. There is no
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: She is too wise or too cruel for that. Eight
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Picturesqueness is the only thing that makes the poverty of
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: others at all bearable. Nine A Woman of No Importance,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: published eighteen ninety four. The prizes of the world degrade
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: a man as much as the world's punishments. Ten Oscar Wilde,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: matriculated at Dublin, eighteen seventy one. Only mediocrites progress. An
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: which is no less perfect than the last. Eleven National
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: hatreds are always strongest where culture is lowest. Twelve I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: would rather have discovered Missus Langtry than have discovered America. Thirteen.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Superstitions are the color element of thought and imagination. They
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: are the opponents of common sense. Common sense is the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: enemy of romance. Fourteen. It is really very distressing to
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: find a low standard of ethics in a Sunday newspaper. Fifteen.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: probably made for better things. Sixteen. Oscar wild born eighteen
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: fifty four. It is a terrible thing for a man
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: to find out suddenly that all his life he has
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: been speaking nothing but the truth. Seventeen. Oscar wild Man
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: triculated at Oxford eighteen seventy four. Oxford has kept the
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: background for romance, and to the true romantic background is everything,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: or almost everything. Eighteen. It is perfectly monstrous the way
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: people go about saying things against one behind one's back
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: that are absolutely and entirely true. Nineteen. In the country,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: people get up early because they have so much to do,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and go to bed early because they have so little
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: to think about. Twenty One. Never seems so much at
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: one's ease as when one has to play a part.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Twenty one freckles run in Scotch families just as gout
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: does in English families. Twenty two. One should never put
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: one's way worship into words. Twenty three. People who go
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: in for being consistent have just as many moods as
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: others have. The only difference is that their moods are
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: rather meaningless. Twenty four. A man who is master of
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: invent a pleasure. Twenty five. Religion consoles some women. Its
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation. Twenty six.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all. Twenty seven.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: The one charm of the past is that it is
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: May always want a sixth act, and as soon as
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: the interest of the play is entirely over, they propose
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: to continue it. Twenty eight. Women are charmingly artificial, but
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: they have no sense of art. Twenty nine. The only
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: writers who have influenced me are Keats, Flaubert, and Walter Peter.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Thirty to live is the rarest thing in the world.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Most people exist, that is all. Thirty one Friendship never forgets.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: That is the wonderful thing about it. End of section
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: ten Section eleven of the Oscar wild Calendar by Oscar Wilde,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: edited by Stuart Mason. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: public domain novem. One. Good people do a great deal
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: of harm in this world. Certainly, the greatest harm they
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. Two.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: On seeing a skull, death is so Gothic, life is
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: so Greek. Three. All charming people are spoiled. It is
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the secret of their attraction. Four. Success is given to
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: the strong, Failure is thrust upon the weak. Five. There
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: is always something peculiarly impotent about the violence of a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: literary man. Six. The best way to make children good
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: is to make them happy. Seven. It is not the
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: person effect, but the imperfect who have need of love.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: Eight Lady Windermerez Fan published eighteen ninety three. There are
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: moments when art attains almost to the dignity of manual labour. Nine.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: The cross benches form a refuge for those who have
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: no minds to make up. Ten Salome prohibited by the
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Holy Synod in Saint Petersburg nineteen oh eight. The form
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: of government that is most suitable to the artist is
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: no government at all. Eleven. A man who is much
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: talked about is always very attractive. Twelve. One can always
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: be kind to people about whom one cares nothing thirteen.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde taken from One'sworth Prison to Reading eighteen ninety five.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: The laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. Fourteen.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: One of the tragedies of prison life is that it
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: turns a man's heart to stone. Fifteen. It is always
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: a silly thing to give advice, but to give good
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: advice is absolutely fatal. Sixteen. Crying is the refuge of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: plain women, but the ruin of pretty ones. Seventeen. There
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: is this to be said in favor of the despot,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: that he, being an individual, may have culture, while the mob,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: being a monster, has none. Eighteen There is always a
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: certain amount of danger in any attempt to cultivate impossible
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: virtues nineteen. Revival of Lady Windermerez Fan nineteen o four.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: English actors act quite well, but they act best between
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: the lines. Twenty It is better to be good looking
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: than to be good twenty one. Truly religious people are
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: resigned to everything, even to mediocre poetry. Twenty two. I
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: don't think I shall live to see the new century.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: If another century began and I was still alive, it
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: would be more than the English could stand. Twenty three.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: If a woman really repents, she never wishes to return
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: to the society that has made or see in her
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: ruin twenty four. Prison at chaplains are entirely useless. They
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: are as a class, well meaning, but foolish, indeed silly men.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: Twenty five. Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: her age may be, nor a woman over thirty five
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: she has a history. Twenty six. It is very vulgar
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: and then merely at dinner parties. Twenty seven. Anybody can
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Twenty eight. Oscar Wilde took his degree at Oxford eighteen seventy.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: It is always an advantage not to have received a
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: sound commercial education. Twenty nine. It appears that I am
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: dying beyond my means thirty Death of Oscar wild nineteen hundred.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: The Importance of Being Earnest Revived nineteen o nine. Everyone
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: is born a king, and most people die in exile
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: like most kings. End of section eleven Section twelve of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the Oscar Wilde Calendar by Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain December one.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Though indignation may make a great poet, bad temper always
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: makes a poor critic. Two. Marriage is the one subject
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: on which all women agree and all men disagree. Three
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde buried nineteen hundred. A true artist reveals himself
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: so perfectly in his work that unless a biographer has
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: anything more valuable to give us than idle anecdotes and
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: unmeaning tales, his labor is misspent and his industry misdirected. Four.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: In America, the young are always ready to give to
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: those who are older than themselves the full benefits of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: their inexperience. Five. Absolute catholicity of taste is not without
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: all schools of art. Six it's third to talk of
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: I listen with any respect are people much younger than myself. Seven.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: The senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: mysteries to reveal. Eight. If theology desires to move us,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: she must rewrite her formulas. Nine Opera of Salinee produced
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: at Berlin nineteen o five. German sounds are thoroughly respectable language. Ten.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: the trade name of the farm. Eleven. There are moments
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: when one has to choose between living one's own life fully, entirely, completely,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: in its hypocrisy, demands. Twelve. There are only two eras
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: of any importance in the world's history. The first is
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: the appearance of a new medium for art, and the
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: second is the appearance of a new personality for art. Thirteen.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: the improbable. Fourteen. To know nothing about their great men
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: is one of the necessary elements of English education. Fifteen.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: To give form to one's dreams, to give shape to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: one's fancy, to change one's ideas into images. To express
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: one's self through a material that one makes lovely by
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: mere treatment. To realize in this material the immaterial ideal
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: of beauty. This is the pleasure of the artist. It
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: is the most sensuous and most intellectual pleasure in the
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: whole world. Sixteen. No artist recognizes any standard outside his
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: own temperament. Seventeen. The only way a woman can ever
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: reform a man is by boring him so completely that
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: he loses all possible interest in life. Eighteen. A man
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: who desires to get maddage should know either everything or nothing. Nineteen.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: of the unemployed. Twenty Originality, like beauty, is a fatal gift.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Twenty one. The only apostle who did not deserve proof
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: was Saint Thomas, and Saint Thomas was the only apostle
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: who got it. Twenty two. A government might just as
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: well try to teach painters how to paint or sculptors
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: how to model, as attempt to interfere with the style
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: treatment and subject matter of the literary artist. Twenty three.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit. Touch it and
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: the bloom is gone. Twenty four. Oscar Wilde sailed for
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: New York eighteen eighty one. Travel improves the mind wonderfully
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: and does away with all one's prejudices twenty five. Religions
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: die when they are proved to be true. Science is
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: the record of dead religions twenty six. Charity creates a
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: multitude of sins twenty seven. America's youth is one of
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: her oldest and most hallowed traditions. Twenty eight. The whole
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: twenty nine. No publisher should ever express an opinion of
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: the value of what he publishes. That is a matter
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: entirely for the literary critic to decide. Thirty how many
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: men there are in modern life who would like to
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: see their past burning to white ashes before them? Thirty
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: one A bad book is very dear at a shilling.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Thanks adieue to mister George Alexander, mister Arthur Humphries, and others,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: without whose permission it would have been difficult to compile
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: this calendar. Many quotations are made from works little known
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: to the general reader. Some are taken from unpublished manuscripts,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: others are traditional. For any of the latter, the compiler
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: is indebted to the courtesy of mister Robert Ross. End
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: of section twelve. End of the Oscar Wilde Calendar by
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Stuart Mason,