The artist

by Oscar Wilde

ONE evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image
of THE PLEASURE THAT ABIDETH FOR A MOMENT. And he went forth into the world to look for bronze. For he could think only in bronze.


But all the bronze of the whole world had disappeared, nor anywhere
in the whole world was there any bronze to be found, save only the
bronze of the image of THE SORROW THAT ENDURETH FOR EVER.

Now this image he had himself, and with his own hands, fashioned,
and had set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life.
On the tomb of the dead thing he had most loved had he set this
image of his own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the
love of man that dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of man that
endureth for ever. And in the whole world there was no other
bronze save the bronze of this image.

And he took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great
furnace, and gave it to the fire.

And out of the bronze of the image of THE SORROW THAT ENDURETH FOR
EVER he fashioned an image of THE PLEASURE THAT ABIDETH FOR A
MOMENT.