lie.

The movement of those called Æsthetes (as satirised in _Patience_) and
the movement of those afterwards called Decadents (satirised in Mr.
Street's delightful _Autobiography of a Boy_) had the same captain; or
at any rate the same bandmaster. Oscar Wilde walked in front of the
first procession wearing a sunflower, and in front of the second
procession wearing a green carnation. With the æsthetic movement and its
more serious elements, I deal elsewhere; but the second appearance of
Wilde is also connected with real intellectual influences, largely
negative, indeed, but subtle and influential. The mark in most of the
arts of this time was a certain quality which those who like it would
call "uniqueness of aspect," and those who do not like it "not quite
coming off." I mean the thing meant something from one standpoint; but
its mark was that the _smallest_ change of standpoint made it unmeaning
and unthinkable--a foolish joke. A beggar painted by Rembrandt is as
solid as a statue, however roughly he is sketched in; the soul can walk
all round him like a public monument. We see he would have other
aspects; and that they would all be the aspects of a beggar. Even if one
did not admit the extraordinary qualities in the painting, one would
have to admit the ordinary qualities in the sitter. If it is not a
masterpiece it is a man. But a nocturne by Whistler of mist on the
Thames is either a masterpiece or it is nothing; it is either a nocturne
or a nightmare of childish nonsense. Made in a certain mood, viewed
through a certain temperament, conceived under certain conventions, it
may be, it often is, an unreplaceable poem, a vision that may never be
seen again. But the moment it ceases to be a splendid picture it ceases
to be a picture at all. Or, again, if _Hamlet_ is not a great tragedy it
is an uncommonly good tale. The people and the posture of affairs would
still be there even if one thought that Shakespeare's moral attitude was