Thereupon the interviewer suggested that dramatic criticism was at least influential.
"Certainly; that is why it is so bad," he replied, and went on to say:
"The moment criticism exercises any influence it ceases to be criticism. The aim of the true critic is to try and chronicle his own moods, not to try and correct the masterpieces of others."
"Real critics would be charming in your eyes, then?"
"Real critics? Ah, how perfectly charming they would be! I am always waiting for their arrival. An inaudible school would be nice. Why do you not found it?"
Oscar Wilde was asked if there were, then, absolutely no critics in London.
"There are just two," he answered, but refused to give their names. The interviewer goes on to recount his exact words:
"Mr Wilde, with the elaborate courtesy for which he has always been famous, replied, 'I think I had better not mention their names; it might make the others so jealous.'
"'What do the literary cliques think of your plays?'
"'I don't write to please cliques; I write to please myself. Besides, I have always had grave suspicions that the basis of all literary cliques is a morbid love of meat-teas. That makes them sadly uncivilised.'