him that one must be careful not to be unjust to the world.

"In the preface on education, called 'Parents and Children,' to my
volume of plays beginning with _Misalliance_, there is a section
headed 'Artist Idolatry,' which is really about Wilde. Dealing with
'the powers enjoyed by brilliant persons who are also connoisseurs in
art,' I say, 'the influence they can exercise on young people who have
been brought up in the darkness and wretchedness of a home without
art, and in whom a natural bent towards art has always been baffled
and snubbed, is incredible to those who have not witnessed and
understood it. He (or she) who reveals the world of art to them opens
heaven to them. They become satellites, disciples, worshippers of the
apostle. Now the apostle may be a voluptuary without much conscience.
Nature may have given him enough virtue to suffice in a reasonable
environment. But this allowance may not be enough to defend him
against the temptation and demoralization of finding himself a little
god on the strength of what ought to be a quite ordinary culture. He
may find adorers in all directions in our uncultivated society among
people of stronger character than himself, not one of whom, if they
had been artistically educated, would have had anything to learn from
him, or regarded him as in any way extraordinary apart from his actual
achievements as an artist. Tartufe is not always a priest. Indeed, he
is not always a rascal: he is often a weak man absurdly credited with
omniscience and perfection, and taking unfair advantages only because
they are offered to him and he is too weak to refuse. Give everyone
his culture, and no one will offer him more than his due.'

"That paragraph was the outcome of a walk and talk I had one afternoon
at Chartres with Robert Ross.

"You reveal Wilde as a weaker man than I thought him: I still believe
that his fierce Irish pride had something to do with his refusal to
run away from the trial. But in the main your evidence is conclusive.
It was part of his tragedy that people asked more moral strength from
him that he could bear the burden of, because they made the very
common mistake--of which actors get the benefit--of regarding style as
evidence of strength, just as in the case of women they are apt to
regard paint as evidence of beauty. Now Wilde was so in love with
style that he never realized the danger of biting off more than he
could chew: in other words, of putting up more s