Austen vs Wilde: should wit reveal the heart or dazzle the room?
JANE AUSTEN vs OSCAR WILDE go head to head — and every jab is rooted in real history.
A clever line is only worthy, Mr. Wilde, if it lays bare the follies of the human heart; irony should instruct, not merely entertain.
But instruction is so tedious, Miss Austen. A truth becomes tolerable only when it is beautifully phrased and slightly scandalous.
You dress vanity in epigrams and call it philosophy; I hold up a modest looking-glass and let the reader recognize herself.
My dear, your looking-glass shows people as they are, but mine shows them as they long to be seen, and that is the more honest lie.
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