The period in which the Symbolists worked was marked by confusion regarding moral, social, religious, and intellectual attitudes. The world was expanding beyond European norms; socialism no longer consisted of the benevolent intentions with which it set out. The relationship between love and marriage was being questioned, as was religion. Artists in particular felt that they were isolated and separate from the bourgeoisie. Yet the idea of the spiritual was very important in the development of Symbolism and reflected the anti-materialist philosophies that were concerned with mysticism (a direct connection and unity with the ultimate reality). An interest in the occult was related to this concept, as was a taste for the morbid and perverse, as this period is often described as one of "decadence" (a period of artistic or moral decline as seen in the preference for the artificial over the natural - and by extension, the idea that even humanity was in decline). English writer Oscar Wilde's works and the French writer Joris-Karl Huysman's À Rebours (Against Nature) (1884), as well as the art of many of the Symbolists, reflect this decadence.