Characters
Gilbert
The critic as artist
Gilbert is the host, found at the piano playing Chopin in his library overlooking the Green Park. He claims he is not in the mood for talking and then talks until dawn, answering each of Ernest's objections with a paradox, a quotation or a long imaginative flight through Homer or Dante. He distrusts agreement, 'When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong', and at the end happily accepts the name of dreamer.
Ernest
The sensible questioner
Ernest is Gilbert's guest, first seen laughing over a volume of memoirs. He begins with common-sense views: that critics are useless, that the Greeks had none, that doing is harder than talking, and that a critic should be fair, rational and sincere. He concedes point after point, keeps the argument moving with short questions, and at the end sums up Gilbert's paradoxes before calling him a dreamer.