interesting that the people who use it do not know what it means.

What does it mean? What is a healthy, or an unhealthy work of art?
All terms that one applies to a work of art, provided that one
applies them rationally, have reference to either its style or its
subject, or to both together. From the point of view of style, a
healthy work of art is one whose style recognises the beauty of the
material it employs, be that material one of words or of bronze, of
colour or of ivory, and uses that beauty as a factor in producing
the aesthetic effect. From the point of view of subject, a healthy
work of art is one the choice of whose subject is conditioned by
the temperament of the artist, and comes directly out of it. In
fine, a healthy work of art is one that has both perfection and
personality. Of course, form and substance cannot be separated in
a work of art; they are always one. But for purposes of analysis,
and setting the wholeness of aesthetic impression aside for a
moment, we can intellectually so separate them. An unhealthy work
of art, on the other hand, is a work whose style is obvious, old-
fashioned, and common, and whose subject is deliberately chosen,
not because the artist has any pleasure in it, but because he
thinks that the public will pay him for it. In fact, the popular
novel that the public calls healthy is always a thoroughly
unhealthy production; and what the public call an unhealthy novel
is always a beautiful and healthy work of art.

I need hardly say that I am not, for a single moment, complaining
that the public and the public press misuse these words. I do not
see how, with their lack of comprehension of what Art is, they
could possibly use them in the proper sense. I am merely pointing
out the misuse; and as for the origin of the misuse and the meaning