Some Wilde Advice

As you know by now (if you’ve been reading), I received a new copy of Wilde’s Dorian Gray for the holidays, which was as good an excuse as any to read it yet again.  Somehow I never run out of these excuses.

In one of the later scenes in the book, I came upon two bits of Lord Henry’s wit that never struck me as similar until reading this time.  “He atones for being occasionally somewhat over-dressed, by being always absolutely over-educated” and “[he] was under the impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of ideas.”  The former more flippant and the later more cynical, I always thought these quips addressed different issues, but the more I ponder them the more they seem alike.

It really all comes down to one of the basic tenants of Simply Refined.  Surfaces should not be merely surfaces – There is a way of being and a way of living to which one should aspire, not simply a way of dressing or a way of looking.  Don’t be just amusing, be interesting; don’t just look elegant, be elegant.