quote · Legacy record
Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather an other chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather an other chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
Approximate author period: c. 1877 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Oscar Wilde
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1877 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1854–1900)
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- Contributor-provided quotation collection
Supplied reference C; CSV row 168343; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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