V. Lucas, no selections of
poetry or prose have ever given complete satisfaction to anyone except
the compiler. But critics derive great satisfaction from pointing out
errors of omission and inclusion on the part of the anthologist, and all
of us have putatively re-arranged and re-edited even the "Golden
Treasury" in our leisure moments. In an age when "Art for Art's sake" is
an exploded doctrine, anthologies, like everything else, must have a
purpose. The purpose or object of the present volume is to afford
admirers of Wilde's work the same innocent pleasure obtainable from
similar compilations, namely that of reconstructing a selection of their
own in their mind's eye--for copyright considerations would interfere
with the materialisation of their dream.
A stray observation in an esteemed weekly periodical determined the plan
of this anthology and the choice of particular passages. The writer,
whose name has escaped me, opined that the reason the works of Pater and
Wilde were no longer read was owing to both authors having treated
English as a dead language.
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