own sentiments and opinions, again and again, with remarkable fidelity and completeness. And his ideals and his philosophy as presented in his works are entirely consistent with the conduct for which he was sent to prison.
Wilde was of the smart set, and he wrote for the smart set about the smart set. Now, the smart set has many superbly attractive traits and aspects. It does not, as Mr. Harris observes, habitually employ the coarse and obscene language of guttersnipes. Its hair does not fall over its collar, its heels are not run down, its nails are in order. It bathes frequently, dresses modishly, dines daintily, drinks exhilaratingly, lives easily, conforms with many courteous and agreeable social usages, occupies good seats at the theater, buys pictures, hunts in season, attends races, gives house parties, exchanges amenities, talks of beautiful and diverting objects, cultivates conversation and seeks in a multitude of ways to impart to the ordinary slack intercourse of life the tension of style and, for its own members, to raise the entire depressing and disgusting business of being born, married and buried to the level of a fine art.
In compensation for the arduous task of keeping up a beautiful appearance and conforming to its own code, the smart set demands certain privileges, and it takes them. When Lord Henry Wotton (or Lord Arthur Savile or Lord Goring or Algernon Moncrieff or Lord Darlington or Lord Illingworth) has seen the midday sun breaking through his ivory silk curtains, has had his cup of chocolate served by a flawless valet, has drawn his portière of peach-colored plush, bathed his fair limbs in the moonstone waters of his onyx tub, thrown himself upon his divan of
