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the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde the prefacethe artist is the creator of beautiful things.to reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. the critic is he who can translate intoanother manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.the highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. those who find ugly meanings in beautifulthings are corrupt without being charming.
this is a fault.those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. for these there is hope.they are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. books are well written, or badly written.that is all. the nineteenth century dislike of realismis the rage of caliban seeing his own face in a glass. the nineteenth century dislike ofromanticism is the rage of caliban not
seeing his own face in a glass. the moral life of man forms part of thesubject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect useof an imperfect medium. no artist desires to prove anything. even things that are true can be proved.no artist has ethical sympathies. an ethical sympathy in an artist is anunpardonable mannerism of style. no artist is ever morbid. the artist can express everything.thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.vice and virtue are to the artist materials
for an art. from the point of view of form, the type ofall the arts is the art of the musician. from the point of view of feeling, theactor's craft is the type. all art is at once surface and symbol. those who go beneath the surface do so attheir peril. those who read the symbol do so at theirperil. it is the spectator, and not life, that artreally mirrors. diversity of opinion about a work of artshows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
when critics disagree, the artist is inaccord with himself. we can forgive a man for making a usefulthing as long as he does not admire it. the only excuse for making a useless thingis that one admires it intensely. all art is quite useless.oscar wilde > chapter 1 the studio was filled with the rich odourof roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden,there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate
perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. from the corner of the divan of persiansaddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes,lord henry wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulousbranches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs;and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretchedin front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary japanese effect, andmaking him think of those pallid, jade-
faced painters of tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarilyimmobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. the sullen murmur of the bees shoulderingtheir way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence roundthe dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness moreoppressive. the dim roar of london was like the bourdonnote of a distant organ. in the centre of the room, clamped to anupright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinarypersonal beauty, and in front of it, some
little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, basil hallward, whosesudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement andgave rise to so many strange conjectures. as the painter looked at the gracious andcomely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed acrosshis face, and seemed about to linger there. but he suddenly started up, and closing hiseyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within hisbrain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake. "it is your best work, basil, the bestthing you have ever done," said lord henry
languidly."you must certainly send it next year to the grosvenor. the academy is too large and too vulgar. whenever i have gone there, there have beeneither so many people that i have not been able to see the pictures, which wasdreadful, or so many pictures that i have not been able to see the people, which wasworse. the grosvenor is really the only place." "i don't think i shall send it anywhere,"he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laughat him at oxford.
"no, i won't send it anywhere." lord henry elevated his eyebrows and lookedat him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in suchfanciful whorls from his heavy, opium- tainted cigarette. "not send it anywhere?my dear fellow, why? have you any reason?what odd chaps you painters are! you do anything in the world to gain areputation. as soon as you have one, you seem to wantto throw it away. it is silly of you, for there is only onething in the world worse than being talked
about, and that is not being talked about. a portrait like this would set you farabove all the young men in england, and make the old men quite jealous, if old menare ever capable of any emotion." "i know you will laugh at me," he replied,"but i really can't exhibit it. i have put too much of myself into it."lord henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. "yes, i knew you would; but it is quitetrue, all the same." "too much of yourself in it! upon my word, basil, i didn't know you wereso vain; and i really can't see any
resemblance between you, with your ruggedstrong face and your coal-black hair, and this young adonis, who looks as if he wasmade out of ivory and rose-leaves. why, my dear basil, he is a narcissus, andyou--well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. but beauty, real beauty, ends where anintellectual expression begins. intellect is in itself a mode ofexaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. the moment one sits down to think, onebecomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.look at the successful men in any of the
learned professions. how perfectly hideous they are!except, of course, in the church. but then in the church they don't think. a bishop keeps on saying at the age ofeighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a naturalconsequence he always looks absolutely delightful. your mysterious young friend, whose nameyou have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks.i feel quite sure of that. he is some brainless beautiful creature whoshould be always here in winter when we
have no flowers to look at, and always herein summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. don't flatter yourself, basil: you are notin the least like him." "you don't understand me, harry," answeredthe artist. "of course i am not like him. i know that perfectly well.indeed, i should be sorry to look like him. you shrug your shoulders?i am telling you the truth. there is a fatality about all physical andintellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through historythe faltering steps of kings.
it is better not to be different from one'sfellows. the ugly and the stupid have the best of itin this world. they can sit at their ease and gape at theplay. if they know nothing of victory, they areat least spared the knowledge of defeat. they live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet.they neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. your rank and wealth, harry; my brains,such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; dorian gray's good looks--weshall all suffer for what the gods have
given us, suffer terribly." "dorian gray?is that his name?" asked lord henry, walking across the studio towards basilhallward. "yes, that is his name. i didn't intend to tell it to you.""but why not?" "oh, i can't explain.when i like people immensely, i never tell their names to any one. it is like surrendering a part of them.i have grown to love secrecy. it seems to be the one thing that can makemodern life mysterious or marvellous to us.
the commonest thing is delightful if oneonly hides it. when i leave town now i never tell mypeople where i am going. if i did, i would lose all my pleasure. it is a silly habit, i dare say, butsomehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life.i suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?" "not at all," answered lord henry, "not atall, my dear basil. you seem to forget that i am married, andthe one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessaryfor both parties.
i never know where my wife is, and my wifenever knows what i am doing. when we meet--we do meet occasionally, whenwe dine out together, or go down to the duke's--we tell each other the most absurdstories with the most serious faces. my wife is very good at it--much better, infact, than i am. she never gets confused over her dates, andi always do. but when she does find me out, she makes norow at all. i sometimes wish she would; but she merelylaughs at me." "i hate the way you talk about your marriedlife, harry," said basil hallward, strolling towards the door that led intothe garden.
"i believe that you are really a very goodhusband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues.you are an extraordinary fellow. you never say a moral thing, and you neverdo a wrong thing. your cynicism is simply a pose." "being natural is simply a pose, and themost irritating pose i know," cried lord henry, laughing; and the two young men wentout into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stoodin the shade of a tall laurel bush. the sunlight slipped over the polishedleaves. in the grass, white daisies were tremulous.
after a pause, lord henry pulled out hiswatch. "i am afraid i must be going, basil," hemurmured, "and before i go, i insist on your answering a question i put to you sometime ago." "what is that?" said the painter, keepinghis eyes fixed on the ground. "you know quite well.""i do not, harry." "well, i will tell you what it is. i want you to explain to me why you won'texhibit dorian gray's picture. i want the real reason.""i told you the real reason." "no, you did not.
you said it was because there was too muchof yourself in it. now, that is childish." "harry," said basil hallward, looking himstraight in the face, "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait ofthe artist, not of the sitter. the sitter is merely the accident, theoccasion. it is not he who is revealed by thepainter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. the reason i will not exhibit this pictureis that i am afraid that i have shown in it the secret of my own soul."lord henry laughed.
"and what is that?" he asked. "i will tell you," said hallward; but anexpression of perplexity came over his face."i am all expectation, basil," continued his companion, glancing at him. "oh, there is really very little to tell,harry," answered the painter; "and i am afraid you will hardly understand it.perhaps you will hardly believe it." lord henry smiled, and leaning down,plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass and examined it. "i am quite sure i shall understand it," hereplied, gazing intently at the little
golden, white-feathered disk, "and as forbelieving things, i can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible." the wind shook some blossoms from thetrees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro inthe languid air. a grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall,and like a blue thread a long thin dragon- fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. lord henry felt as if he could hear basilhallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming."the story is simply this," said the painter after some time.
"two months ago i went to a crush at ladybrandon's. you know we poor artists have to showourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are notsavages. with an evening coat and a white tie, asyou told me once, anybody, even a stock- broker, can gain a reputation for beingcivilized. well, after i had been in the room aboutten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, isuddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. i turned half-way round and saw dorian grayfor the first time.
when our eyes met, i felt that i wasgrowing pale. a curious sensation of terror came over me. i knew that i had come face to face withsome one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if i allowed it to do so,it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. i did not want any external influence in mylife. you know yourself, harry, how independent iam by nature. i have always been my own master; had atleast always been so, till i met dorian gray.then--but i don't know how to explain it to
you. something seemed to tell me that i was onthe verge of a terrible crisis in my life. i had a strange feeling that fate had instore for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. i grew afraid and turned to quit the room.it was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice.i take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "conscience and cowardice are really thesame things, basil. conscience is the trade-name of the firm.that is all."
"i don't believe that, harry, and i don'tbelieve you do either. however, whatever was my motive--and it mayhave been pride, for i used to be very proud--i certainly struggled to the door. there, of course, i stumbled against ladybrandon. 'you are not going to run away so soon, mr.hallward?' she screamed out. you know her curiously shrill voice?" "yes; she is a peacock in everything butbeauty," said lord henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers."i could not get rid of her. she brought me up to royalties, and peoplewith stars and garters, and elderly ladies
with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses.she spoke of me as her dearest friend. i had only met her once before, but shetook it into her head to lionize me. i believe some picture of mine had made agreat success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the pennynewspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. suddenly i found myself face to face withthe young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me.we were quite close, almost touching. our eyes met again. it was reckless of me, but i asked ladybrandon to introduce me to him.
perhaps it was not so reckless, after all.it was simply inevitable. we would have spoken to each other withoutany introduction. i am sure of that.dorian told me so afterwards. he, too, felt that we were destined to knoweach other." "and how did lady brandon describe thiswonderful young man?" asked his companion. "i know she goes in for giving a rapidprecis of all her guests. i remember her bringing me up to atruculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons,and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly
audible to everybody in the room, the mostastounding details. i simply fled.i like to find out people for myself. but lady brandon treats her guests exactlyas an auctioneer treats his goods. she either explains them entirely away, ortells one everything about them except what one wants to know." "poor lady brandon!you are hard on her, harry!" said hallward listlessly. "my dear fellow, she tried to found asalon, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant.how could i admire her?
but tell me, what did she say about mr.dorian gray?" "oh, something like, 'charming boy--poordear mother and i absolutely inseparable. quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do anything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear mr. gray?'neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once." "laughter is not at all a bad beginning fora friendship, and it is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, pluckinganother daisy. hallward shook his head. "you don't understand what friendship is,harry," he murmured--"or what enmity is,
for that matter.you like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one." "how horribly unjust of you!" cried lordhenry, tilting his hat back and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelledskeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summersky. "yes; horribly unjust of you.i make a great difference between people. i choose my friends for their good looks,my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
i have not got one who is a fool.they are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciateme. is that very vain of me? i think it is rather vain.""i should think it was, harry. but according to your category i must bemerely an acquaintance." "my dear old basil, you are much more thanan acquaintance." "and much less than a friend.a sort of brother, i suppose?" "oh, brothers! i don't care for brothers.my elder brother won't die, and my younger
brothers seem never to do anything else.""harry!" exclaimed hallward, frowning. "my dear fellow, i am not quite serious. but i can't help detesting my relations.i suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having thesame faults as ourselves. i quite sympathize with the rage of theenglish democracy against what they call the vices of the upper orders. the masses feel that drunkenness,stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property, and that if any oneof us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.
when poor southwark got into the divorcecourt, their indignation was quite magnificent.and yet i don't suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat live correctly." "i don't agree with a single word that youhave said, and, what is more, harry, i feel sure you don't either." lord henry stroked his pointed brown beardand tapped the toe of his patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane."how english you are basil! that is the second time you have made thatobservation. if one puts forward an idea to a trueenglishman--always a rash thing to do--he
never dreams of considering whether theidea is right or wrong. the only thing he considers of anyimportance is whether one believes it oneself. now, the value of an idea has nothingwhatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. indeed, the probabilities are that the moreinsincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in thatcase it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. however, i don't propose to discusspolitics, sociology, or metaphysics with
i like persons better than principles, andi like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.tell me more about mr. dorian gray. how often do you see him?" "every day.i couldn't be happy if i didn't see him every day.he is absolutely necessary to me." "how extraordinary! i thought you would never care for anythingbut your art." "he is all my art to me now," said thepainter gravely. "i sometimes think, harry, that there areonly two eras of any importance in the
world's history. the first is the appearance of a new mediumfor art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. what the invention of oil-painting was tothe venetians, the face of antinous was to late greek sculpture, and the face ofdorian gray will some day be to me. it is not merely that i paint from him,draw from him, sketch from him. of course, i have done all that.but he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. i won't tell you that i am dissatisfiedwith what i have done of him, or that his
beauty is such that art cannot express it. there is nothing that art cannot express,and i know that the work i have done, since i met dorian gray, is good work, is thebest work of my life. but in some curious way--i wonder will youunderstand me?--his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner inart, an entirely new mode of style. i see things differently, i think of themdifferently. i can now recreate life in a way that washidden from me before. 'a dream of form in days of thought'--whois it who says that? i forget; but it is what dorian gray hasbeen to me.
the merely visible presence of this lad--for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty--his merelyvisible presence--ah! i wonder can you realize all that thatmeans? unconsciously he defines for me the linesof a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romanticspirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is greek. the harmony of soul and body--how much thatis! we in our madness have separated the two,and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void.
harry! if you only knew what dorian gray isto me! you remember that landscape of mine, forwhich agnew offered me such a huge price but which i would not part with? it is one of the best things i have everdone. and why is it so?because, while i was painting it, dorian gray sat beside me. some subtle influence passed from him tome, and for the first time in my life i saw in the plain woodland the wonder i hadalways looked for and always missed." "basil, this is extraordinary!
i must see dorian gray."hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden.after some time he came back. "harry," he said, "dorian gray is to mesimply a motive in art. you might see nothing in him.i see everything in him. he is never more present in my work thanwhen no image of him is there. he is a suggestion, as i have said, of anew manner. i find him in the curves of certain lines,in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.that is all." "then why won't you exhibit his portrait?"asked lord henry.
"because, without intending it, i have putinto it some expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, ihave never cared to speak to him. he knows nothing about it. he shall never know anything about it.but the world might guess it, and i will not bare my soul to their shallow pryingeyes. my heart shall never be put under theirmicroscope. there is too much of myself in the thing,harry--too much of myself!" "poets are not so scrupulous as you are. they know how useful passion is forpublication.
nowadays a broken heart will run to manyeditions." "i hate them for it," cried hallward. "an artist should create beautiful things,but should put nothing of his own life into them. we live in an age when men treat art as ifit were meant to be a form of autobiography.we have lost the abstract sense of beauty. some day i will show the world what it is;and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of dorian gray.""i think you are wrong, basil, but i won't argue with you.
it is only the intellectually lost who everargue. tell me, is dorian gray very fond of you?"the painter considered for a few moments. "he likes me," he answered after a pause;"i know he likes me. of course i flatter him dreadfully. i find a strange pleasure in saying thingsto him that i know i shall be sorry for having said. as a rule, he is charming to me, and we sitin the studio and talk of a thousand things. now and then, however, he is horriblythoughtless, and seems to take a real
delight in giving me pain. then i feel, harry, that i have given awaymy whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, abit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day." "days in summer, basil, are apt to linger,"murmured lord henry. "perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. it is a sad thing to think of, but there isno doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.that accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.
in the wild struggle for existence, we wantto have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, inthe silly hope of keeping our place. the thoroughly well-informed man--that isthe modern ideal. and the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. it is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monstersand dust, with everything priced above its proper value.i think you will tire first, all the same. some day you will look at your friend, andhe will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone ofcolour, or something. you will bitterly reproach him in your ownheart, and seriously think that he has
behaved very badly to you.the next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. it will be a great pity, for it will alteryou. what you have told me is quite a romance,a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind isthat it leaves one so unromantic." "harry, don't talk like that. as long as i live, the personality ofdorian gray will dominate me. you can't feel what i feel.you change too often." "ah, my dear basil, that is exactly why ican feel it.
those who are faithful know only thetrivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies." and lord henry struck a light on a daintysilver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, asif he had summed up the world in a phrase. there was a rustle of chirruping sparrowsin the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselvesacross the grass like swallows. how pleasant it was in the garden! and how delightful other people's emotionswere!--much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him.
one's own soul, and the passions of one'sfriends--those were the fascinating things in life. he pictured to himself with silentamusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with basilhallward. had he gone to his aunt's, he would havebeen sure to have met lord goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have beenabout the feeding of the poor and the necessity for model lodging-houses. each class would have preached theimportance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in theirown lives.
the rich would have spoken on the value ofthrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.it was charming to have escaped all that! as he thought of his aunt, an idea seemedto strike him. he turned to hallward and said, "my dearfellow, i have just remembered." "remembered what, harry?" "where i heard the name of dorian gray.""where was it?" asked hallward, with a slight frown."don't look so angry, basil. it was at my aunt, lady agatha's. she told me she had discovered a wonderfulyoung man who was going to help her in the
east end, and that his name was doriangray. i am bound to state that she never told mehe was good-looking. women have no appreciation of good looks;at least, good women have not. she said that he was very earnest and had abeautiful nature. i at once pictured to myself a creaturewith spectacles and lank hair, horribly freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. i wish i had known it was your friend.""i am very glad you didn't, harry." "why?""i don't want you to meet him." "you don't want me to meet him?"
"no.""mr. dorian gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into the garden."you must introduce me now," cried lord henry, laughing. the painter turned to his servant, whostood blinking in the sunlight. "ask mr. gray to wait, parker: i shall bein in a few moments." the man bowed and went up the walk. then he looked at lord henry."dorian gray is my dearest friend," he said."he has a simple and a beautiful nature. your aunt was quite right in what she saidof him.
don't spoil him.don't try to influence him. your influence would be bad. the world is wide, and has many marvellouspeople in it. don't take away from me the one person whogives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends onhim. mind, harry, i trust you." he spoke very slowly, and the words seemedwrung out of him almost against his will. "what nonsense you talk!" said lord henry,smiling, and taking hallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house.
chapter 2 as they entered they saw dorian gray.he was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volumeof schumann's "forest scenes." "you must lend me these, basil," he cried. "i want to learn them.they are perfectly charming." "that entirely depends on how you sit to-day, dorian." "oh, i am tired of sitting, and i don'twant a life-sized portrait of myself," answered the lad, swinging round on themusic-stool in a wilful, petulant manner. when he caught sight of lord henry, a faintblush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and
he started up."i beg your pardon, basil, but i didn't know you had any one with you." "this is lord henry wotton, dorian, an oldoxford friend of mine. i have just been telling him what a capitalsitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything." "you have not spoiled my pleasure inmeeting you, mr. gray," said lord henry, stepping forward and extending his hand."my aunt has often spoken to me about you. you are one of her favourites, and, i amafraid, one of her victims also." "i am in lady agatha's black books atpresent," answered dorian with a funny look
of penitence. "i promised to go to a club in whitechapelwith her last tuesday, and i really forgot all about it.we were to have played a duet together-- three duets, i believe. i don't know what she will say to me.i am far too frightened to call." "oh, i will make your peace with my aunt.she is quite devoted to you. and i don't think it really matters aboutyour not being there. the audience probably thought it was aduet. when aunt agatha sits down to the piano,she makes quite enough noise for two
people.""that is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered dorian, laughing. lord henry looked at him.yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, hisfrank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. there was something in his face that madeone trust him at once. all the candour of youth was there, as wellas all youth's passionate purity. one felt that he had kept himself unspottedfrom the world. no wonder basil hallward worshipped him."you are too charming to go in for philanthropy, mr. gray--far too charming."
and lord henry flung himself down on thedivan and opened his cigarette-case. the painter had been busy mixing hiscolours and getting his brushes ready. he was looking worried, and when he heardlord henry's last remark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,"harry, i want to finish this picture to- day. would you think it awfully rude of me if iasked you to go away?" lord henry smiled and looked at doriangray. "am i to go, mr. gray?" he asked. "oh, please don't, lord henry.i see that basil is in one of his sulky
moods, and i can't bear him when he sulks.besides, i want you to tell me why i should not go in for philanthropy." "i don't know that i shall tell you that,mr. gray. it is so tedious a subject that one wouldhave to talk seriously about it. but i certainly shall not run away, nowthat you have asked me to stop. you don't really mind, basil, do you?you have often told me that you liked your sitters to have some one to chat to." hallward bit his lip."if dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.dorian's whims are laws to everybody,
except himself." lord henry took up his hat and gloves."you are very pressing, basil, but i am afraid i must go.i have promised to meet a man at the orleans. good-bye, mr. gray.come and see me some afternoon in curzon street.i am nearly always at home at five o'clock. write to me when you are coming. i should be sorry to miss you.""basil," cried dorian gray, "if lord henry wotton goes, i shall go, too.
you never open your lips while you arepainting, and it is horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.ask him to stay. i insist upon it." "stay, harry, to oblige dorian, and tooblige me," said hallward, gazing intently at his picture. "it is quite true, i never talk when i amworking, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious for myunfortunate sitters. i beg you to stay." "but what about my man at the orleans?"the painter laughed.
"i don't think there will be any difficultyabout that. sit down again, harry. and now, dorian, get up on the platform,and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what lord henry says. he has a very bad influence over all hisfriends, with the single exception of myself." dorian gray stepped up on the dais with theair of a young greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to lord henry, towhom he had rather taken a fancy. he was so unlike basil.
they made a delightful contrast.and he had such a beautiful voice. after a few moments he said to him, "haveyou really a very bad influence, lord henry? as bad as basil says?""there is no such thing as a good influence, mr. gray.all influence is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view." "why?""because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.he does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.
his virtues are not real to him.his sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. he becomes an echo of some one else'smusic, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.the aim of life is self-development. to realize one's nature perfectly--that iswhat each of us is here for. people are afraid of themselves, nowadays. they have forgotten the highest of allduties, the duty that one owes to one's self.of course, they are charitable. they feed the hungry and clothe the beggar.
but their own souls starve, and are naked.courage has gone out of our race. perhaps we never really had it. the terror of society, which is the basisof morals, the terror of god, which is the secret of religion--these are the twothings that govern us. and yet--" "just turn your head a little more to theright, dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work and consciousonly that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. "and yet," continued lord henry, in hislow, musical voice, and with that graceful
wave of the hand that was always socharacteristic of him, and that he had even in his eton days, "i believe that if one man were to live out his life fully andcompletely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought,reality to every dream--i believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladiesof mediaevalism, and return to the hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than thehellenic ideal, it may be. but the bravest man amongst us is afraid ofhimself. the mutilation of the savage has its tragicsurvival in the self-denial that mars our
lives. we are punished for our refusals.every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.the body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. nothing remains then but the recollectionof a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. the only way to get rid of a temptation isto yield to it. resist it, and your soul grows sick withlonging for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrouslaws have made monstrous and unlawful. it has been said that the great events ofthe world take place in the brain.
it is in the brain, and the brain only,that the great sins of the world take place also. you, mr. gray, you yourself, with yourrose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made youafraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheekwith shame--" "stop!" faltered dorian gray, "stop! youbewilder me. i don't know what to say. there is some answer to you, but i cannotfind it.
don't speak.let me think. or, rather, let me try not to think." for nearly ten minutes he stood there,motionless, with parted lips and eyes strangely bright.he was dimly conscious that entirely fresh influences were at work within him. yet they seemed to him to have come reallyfrom himself. the few words that basil's friend had saidto him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in them--hadtouched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt was
now vibrating and throbbing to curiouspulses. 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 anotherchaos, 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 inthem! they seemed to be able to give a plasticform to formless things, and to have a
music of their own as sweet as that of violor of lute. mere words! was there anything so real as words?yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.he understood them now. life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him. it seemed to him that he had been walkingin fire. why had he not known it?with his subtle smile, lord henry watched him. he knew the precise psychological momentwhen to say nothing.
he felt intensely interested. he was amazed at the sudden impression thathis words had produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he wondered whether dorian gray was passing through asimilar experience. he had merely shot an arrow into the air.had it hit the mark? how fascinating the lad was! hallward painted away with that marvellousbold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that inart, at any rate comes only from strength.
he was unconscious of the silence. "basil, i am tired of standing," crieddorian gray suddenly. "i must go out and sit in the garden.the air is stifling here." "my dear fellow, i am so sorry. when i am painting, i can't think ofanything else. but you never sat better.you were perfectly still. and i have caught the effect i wanted--thehalf-parted lips and the bright look in the eyes. i don't know what harry has been saying toyou, but he has certainly made you have the
most wonderful expression.i suppose he has been paying you compliments. you mustn't believe a word that he says.""he has certainly not been paying me compliments.perhaps that is the reason that i don't believe anything he has told me." "you know you believe it all," said lordhenry, looking at him with his dreamy languorous eyes."i will go out to the garden with you. it is horribly hot in the studio. basil, let us have something iced to drink,something with strawberries in it."
"certainly, harry.just touch the bell, and when parker comes i will tell him what you want. i have got to work up this background, so iwill join you later on. don't keep dorian too long.i have never been in better form for painting than i am to-day. this is going to be my masterpiece.it is my masterpiece as it stands." lord henry went out to the garden and founddorian gray burying his face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking intheir perfume as if it had been wine. he came close to him and put his hand uponhis shoulder.
"you are quite right to do that," hemurmured. "nothing can cure the soul but the senses,just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."the lad started and drew back. he was bareheaded, and the leaves hadtossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. there was a look of fear in his eyes, suchas people have when they are suddenly awakened. his finely chiselled nostrils quivered, andsome hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.
"yes," continued lord henry, "that is oneof the great secrets of life--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the sensesby means of the soul. you are a wonderful creation. you know more than you think you know, justas you know less than you want to know." dorian gray frowned and turned his headaway. he could not help liking the tall, gracefulyoung man who was standing by him. his romantic, olive-coloured face and wornexpression interested him. there was something in his low languidvoice that was absolutely fascinating. his cool, white, flowerlike hands, even,had a curious charm.
they moved, as he spoke, like music, andseemed to have a language of their own. but he felt afraid of him, and ashamed ofbeing afraid. why had it been left for a stranger toreveal him to himself? he had known basil hallward for months, butthe friendship between them had never altered him. suddenly there had come some one across hislife who seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.and, yet, what was there to be afraid of? he was not a schoolboy or a girl. it was absurd to be frightened."let us go and sit in the shade," said lord
henry. "parker has brought out the drinks, and ifyou stay any longer in this glare, you will be quite spoiled, and basil will neverpaint you again. you really must not allow yourself tobecome sunburnt. it would be unbecoming." "what can it matter?" cried dorian gray,laughing, as he sat down on the seat at the end of the garden."it should matter everything to you, mr. gray." "why?""because you have the most marvellous
youth, and youth is the one thing worthhaving." "i don't feel that, lord henry." "no, you don't feel it now. some day, when you are old and wrinkled andugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded yourlips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. now, wherever you go, you charm the world.will it always be so?... you have a wonderfully beautiful face, mr.gray. don't frown.
you have.and beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs noexplanation. it is of the great facts of the world, likesunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we callthe moon. it cannot be questioned. it has its divine right of sovereignty.it makes princes of those who have it. you smile?ah! when you have lost it you won't smile.... people say sometimes that beauty is onlysuperficial.
that may be so, but at least it is not sosuperficial as thought is. to me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. it is only shallow people who do not judgeby appearances. the true mystery of the world is thevisible, not the invisible.... yes, mr. gray, the gods have been good toyou. but what the gods give they quickly takeaway. you have only a few years in which to livereally, perfectly, and fully. when your youth goes, your beauty will gowith it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs leftfor you, or have to content yourself with
those mean triumphs that the memory of yourpast will make more bitter than defeats. every month as it wanes brings you nearerto something dreadful. time is jealous of you, and wars againstyour lilies and your roses. you will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked,and dull-eyed. you will suffer horribly.... ah! realize your youth while you have it. don't squander the gold of your days,listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away yourlife to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.
these are the sickly aims, the falseideals, of our age. live!live the wonderful life that is in you! let nothing be lost upon you. be always searching for new sensations.be afraid of nothing.... a new hedonism--that is what our centurywants. you might be its visible symbol. with your personality there is nothing youcould not do. the world belongs to you for a season.... the moment i met you i saw that you werequite unconscious of what you really are,
of what you really might be. there was so much in you that charmed methat i felt i must tell you something about yourself.i thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. for there is such a little time that youryouth will last--such a little time. the common hill-flowers wither, but theyblossom again. the laburnum will be as yellow next june asit is now. in a month there will be purple stars onthe clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will hold its purplestars.
but we never get back our youth. the pulse of joy that beats in us at twentybecomes sluggish. our limbs fail, our senses rot. we degenerate into hideous puppets, hauntedby the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisitetemptations that we had not the courage to yield to. youth!youth! there is absolutely nothing in the worldbut youth!" dorian gray listened, open-eyed andwondering.
the spray of lilac fell from his hand uponthe gravel. a furry bee came and buzzed round it for amoment. then it began to scramble all over the ovalstellated globe of the tiny blossoms. he watched it with that strange interest intrivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, orwhen we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays suddensiege to the brain and calls on us to yield.after a time the bee flew away. he saw it creeping into the stained trumpetof a tyrian convolvulus.
the flower seemed to quiver, and thenswayed gently to and fro. suddenly the painter appeared at the doorof the studio and made staccato signs for them to come in.they turned to each other and smiled. "i am waiting," he cried. "do come in.the light is quite perfect, and you can bring your drinks."they rose up and sauntered down the walk together. two green-and-white butterflies flutteredpast them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of the garden a thrush began tosing.
"you are glad you have met me, mr. gray,"said lord henry, looking at him. "yes, i am glad now.i wonder shall i always be glad?" "always! that is a dreadful word.it makes me shudder when i hear it. women are so fond of using it.they spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. it is a meaningless word, too.the only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lastsa little longer." as they entered the studio, dorian gray puthis hand upon lord henry's arm.
"in that case, let our friendship be acaprice," he murmured, flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platformand resumed his pose. lord henry flung himself into a largewicker arm-chair and watched him. the sweep and dash of the brush on thecanvas made the only sound that broke the stillness, except when, now and then,hallward stepped back to look at his work from a distance. in the slanting beams that streamed throughthe open doorway the dust danced and was golden.the heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.
after about a quarter of an hour hallwardstopped painting, looked for a long time at dorian gray, and then for a long time atthe picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning. "it is quite finished," he cried at last,and stooping down he wrote his name in long vermilion letters on the left-hand cornerof the canvas. lord henry came over and examined thepicture. it was certainly a wonderful work of art,and a wonderful likeness as well. "my dear fellow, i congratulate you mostwarmly," he said. "it is the finest portrait of modern times.mr. gray, come over and look at yourself."
the lad started, as if awakened from somedream. "is it really finished?" he murmured,stepping down from the platform. "quite finished," said the painter. "and you have sat splendidly to-day.i am awfully obliged to you." "that is entirely due to me," broke in lordhenry. "isn't it, mr. gray?" dorian made no answer, but passedlistlessly in front of his picture and turned towards it.when he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure.
a look of joy came into his eyes, as if hehad recognized himself for the first time. he stood there motionless and in wonder,dimly conscious that hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of hiswords. the sense of his own beauty came on himlike a revelation. he had never felt it before. basil hallward's compliments had seemed tohim to be merely the charming exaggeration of friendship.he had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. they had not influenced his nature.then had come lord henry wotton with his
strange panegyric on youth, his terriblewarning of its brevity. that had stirred him at the time, and now,as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of thedescription flashed across him. yes, there would be a day when his facewould be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figurebroken and deformed. the scarlet would pass away from his lipsand the gold steal from his hair. the life that was to make his soul wouldmar his body. he would become dreadful, hideous, anduncouth. as he thought of it, a sharp pang of painstruck through him like a knife and made
each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. his eyes deepened into amethyst, and acrossthem came a mist of tears. he felt as if a hand of ice had been laidupon his heart. "don't you like it?" cried hallward atlast, stung a little by the lad's silence, not understanding what it meant."of course he likes it," said lord henry. "who wouldn't like it? it is one of the greatest things in modernart. i will give you anything you like to askfor it. i must have it."
"it is not my property, harry.""whose property is it?" "dorian's, of course," answered thepainter. "he is a very lucky fellow." "how sad it is!" murmured dorian gray withhis eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "how sad it is!i shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. but this picture will remain always young.it will never be older than this particular day of june....if it were only the other way! if it were i who was to be always young,and the picture that was to grow old!
for that--for that--i would giveeverything! yes, there is nothing in the whole world iwould not give! i would give my soul for that!" "you would hardly care for such anarrangement, basil," cried lord henry, laughing."it would be rather hard lines on your work." "i should object very strongly, harry,"said hallward. dorian gray turned and looked at him."i believe you would, basil. you like your art better than your friends.
i am no more to you than a green bronzefigure. hardly as much, i dare say."the painter stared in amazement. it was so unlike dorian to speak like that. what had happened?he seemed quite angry. his face was flushed and his cheeksburning. "yes," he continued, "i am less to you thanyour ivory hermes or your silver faun. you will like them always.how long will you like me? till i have my first wrinkle, i suppose. i know, now, that when one loses one's goodlooks, whatever they may be, one loses
everything.your picture has taught me that. lord henry wotton is perfectly right. youth is the only thing worth having.when i find that i am growing old, i shall kill myself."hallward turned pale and caught his hand. "dorian! dorian!" he cried, "don't talk like that.i have never had such a friend as you, and i shall never have such another.you are not jealous of material things, are you?--you who are finer than any of them!" "i am jealous of everything whose beautydoes not die.
i am jealous of the portrait you havepainted of me. why should it keep what i must lose? every moment that passes takes somethingfrom me and gives something to it. oh, if it were only the other way!if the picture could change, and i could be always what i am now! why did you paint it?it will mock me some day--mock me horribly!" the hot tears welled into his eyes; he torehis hand away and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions,as though he was praying.
"this is your doing, harry," said thepainter bitterly. lord henry shrugged his shoulders."it is the real dorian gray--that is all." "it is not." "if it is not, what have i to do with it?""you should have gone away when i asked you," he muttered."i stayed when you asked me," was lord henry's answer. "harry, i can't quarrel with my two bestfriends at once, but between you both you have made me hate the finest piece of worki have ever done, and i will destroy it. what is it but canvas and colour?
i will not let it come across our threelives and mar them." dorian gray lifted his golden head from thepillow, and with pallid face and tear- stained eyes, looked at him as he walkedover to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window. what was he doing there?his fingers were straying about among the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes,seeking for something. yes, it was for the long palette-knife,with its thin blade of lithe steel. he had found it at last.he was going to rip up the canvas. with a stifled sob the lad leaped from thecouch, and, rushing over to hallward, tore
the knife out of his hand, and flung it tothe end of the studio. "don't, basil, don't!" he cried. "it would be murder!""i am glad you appreciate my work at last, dorian," said the painter coldly when hehad recovered from his surprise. "i never thought you would." "appreciate it?i am in love with it, basil. it is part of myself.i feel that." "well, as soon as you are dry, you shall bevarnished, and framed, and sent home. then you can do what you like withyourself."
and he walked across the room and rang thebell for tea. "you will have tea, of course, dorian?and so will you, harry? or do you object to such simple pleasures?" "i adore simple pleasures," said lordhenry. "they are the last refuge of the complex.but i don't like scenes, except on the stage. what absurd fellows you are, both of you!i wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal.it was the most premature definition ever given.
man is many things, but he is not rational.i am glad he is not, after all--though i wish you chaps would not squabble over thepicture. you had much better let me have it, basil. this silly boy doesn't really want it, andi really do." "if you let any one have it but me, basil,i shall never forgive you!" cried dorian gray; "and i don't allow people to call mea silly boy." "you know the picture is yours, dorian. i gave it to you before it existed.""and you know you have been a little silly, mr. gray, and that you don't really objectto being reminded that you are extremely
young." "i should have objected very strongly thismorning, lord henry." "ah! this morning!you have lived since then." there came a knock at the door, and thebutler entered with a laden tea-tray and set it down upon a small japanese table.there was a rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted georgian urn. two globe-shaped china dishes were broughtin by a page. dorian gray went over and poured out thetea. the two men sauntered languidly to thetable and examined what was under the
covers."let us go to the theatre to-night," said lord henry. "there is sure to be something on,somewhere. i have promised to dine at white's, but itis only with an old friend, so i can send him a wire to say that i am ill, or that iam prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent engagement. i think that would be a rather nice excuse:it would have all the surprise of candour." "it is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes," muttered hallward. "and, when one has them on, they are sohorrid."
"yes," answered lord henry dreamily, "thecostume of the nineteenth century is detestable. it is so sombre, so depressing.sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.""you really must not say things like that before dorian, harry." "before which dorian?the one who is pouring out tea for us, or the one in the picture?""before either." "i should like to come to the theatre withyou, lord henry," said the lad. "then you shall come; and you will come,too, basil, won't you?"
"i can't, really. i would sooner not.i have a lot of work to do." "well, then, you and i will go alone, mr.gray." "i should like that awfully." the painter bit his lip and walked over,cup in hand, to the picture. "i shall stay with the real dorian," hesaid, sadly. "is it the real dorian?" cried the originalof the portrait, strolling across to him. "am i really like that?""yes; you are just like that." "how wonderful, basil!"
"at least you are like it in appearance.but it will never alter," sighed hallward. "that is something.""what a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed lord henry. "why, even in love it is purely a questionfor physiology. it has nothing to do with our own will. young men want to be faithful, and are not;old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.""don't go to the theatre to-night, dorian," said hallward. "stop and dine with me.""i can't, basil."
"why?""because i have promised lord henry wotton to go with him." "he won't like you the better for keepingyour promises. he always breaks his own.i beg you not to go." dorian gray laughed and shook his head. "i entreat you."the lad hesitated, and looked over at lord henry, who was watching them from the tea-table with an amused smile. "i must go, basil," he answered. "very well," said hallward, and he wentover and laid down his cup on the tray.
"it is rather late, and, as you have todress, you had better lose no time. good-bye, harry. good-bye, dorian.come and see me soon. come to-morrow.""certainly." "you won't forget?" "no, of course not," cried dorian."and ... harry!""yes, basil?" "remember what i asked you, when we were inthe garden this morning." "i have forgotten it.""i trust you."
"i wish i could trust myself," said lordhenry, laughing. "come, mr. gray, my hansom is outside, andi can drop you at your own place. good-bye, basil. it has been a most interesting afternoon."as the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a sofa, and a look ofpain came into his face. chapter 3 at half-past twelve next day lord henrywotton strolled from curzon street over to the albany to call on his uncle, lordfermor, a genial if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called
selfish because it derived no particularbenefit from him, but who was considered generous by society as he fed the peoplewho amused him. his father had been our ambassador atmadrid when isabella was young and prim unthought of, but had retired from thediplomatic service in a capricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the embassy at paris, a post to which heconsidered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolence, thegood english of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. the son, who had been his father'ssecretary, had resigned along with his
chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought atthe time, and on succeeding some months later to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic artof doing absolutely nothing. he had two large town houses, but preferredto live in chambers as it was less trouble, and took most of his meals at his club. he paid some attention to the management ofhis collieries in the midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industryon the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood onhis own hearth.
in politics he was a tory, except when thetories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack ofradicals. he was a hero to his valet, who bulliedhim, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. only england could have produced him, andhe always said that the country was going to the dogs. his principles were out of date, but therewas a good deal to be said for his prejudices. when lord henry entered the room, he foundhis uncle sitting in a rough shooting-coat,
smoking a cheroot and grumbling over thetimes. "well, harry," said the old gentleman,"what brings you out so early? i thought you dandies never got up tilltwo, and were not visible till five." "pure family affection, i assure you, unclegeorge. i want to get something out of you.""money, i suppose," said lord fermor, making a wry face. "well, sit down and tell me all about it.young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything." "yes," murmured lord henry, settling hisbutton-hole in his coat; "and when they
grow older they know it.but i don't want money. it is only people who pay their bills whowant that, uncle george, and i never pay mine.credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. besides, i always deal with dartmoor'stradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. what i want is information: not usefulinformation, of course; useless information." "well, i can tell you anything that is inan english blue book, harry, although those
fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense.when i was in the diplomatic, things were much better. but i hear they let them in now byexamination. what can you expect?examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. if a man is a gentleman, he knows quiteenough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "mr. dorian gray does not belong to bluebooks, uncle george," said lord henry languidly."mr. dorian gray?
who is he?" asked lord fermor, knitting hisbushy white eyebrows. "that is what i have come to learn, unclegeorge. or rather, i know who he is. he is the last lord kelso's grandson.his mother was a devereux, lady margaret devereaux.i want you to tell me about his mother. what was she like? whom did she marry?you have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her.i am very much interested in mr. gray at present.
i have only just met him.""kelso's grandson!" echoed the old gentleman."kelso's grandson!... of course.... i knew his mother intimately.i believe i was at her christening. she was an extraordinarily beautiful girl,margaret devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a pennilessyoung fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or somethingof that kind. certainly.i remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday.
the poor chap was killed in a duel at spa afew months after the marriage. there was an ugly story about it. they said kelso got some rascallyadventurer, some belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, todo it, paid him--and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. the thing was hushed up, but, egad, kelsoate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards.he brought his daughter back with him, i was told, and she never spoke to him again. oh, yes; it was a bad business.the girl died, too, died within a year.
so she left a son, did she?i had forgotten that. what sort of boy is he? if he is like his mother, he must be agood-looking chap." "he is very good-looking," assented lordhenry. "i hope he will fall into proper hands,"continued the old man. "he should have a pot of money waiting forhim if kelso did the right thing by him. his mother had money, too. all the selby property came to her, throughher grandfather. her grandfather hated kelso, thought him amean dog.
he was, too. came to madrid once when i was there.egad, i was ashamed of him. the queen used to ask me about the englishnoble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. they made quite a story of it.i didn't dare show my face at court for a month.i hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies." "i don't know," answered lord henry."i fancy that the boy will be well off. he is not of age yet.he has selby, i know.
he told me so. and ... his mother was very beautiful?""margaret devereux was one of the loveliest creatures i ever saw, harry.what on earth induced her to behave as she did, i never could understand. she could have married anybody she chose.carlington was mad after her. she was romantic, though.all the women of that family were. the men were a poor lot, but, egad! thewomen were wonderful. carlington went on his knees to her.told me so himself. she laughed at him, and there wasn't a girlin london at the time who wasn't after him.
and by the way, harry, talking about sillymarriages, what is this humbug your father tells me about dartmoor wanting to marry anamerican? ain't english girls good enough for him?" "it is rather fashionable to marryamericans just now, uncle george." "i'll back english women against the world,harry," said lord fermor, striking the table with his fist. "the betting is on the americans.""they don't last, i am told," muttered his uncle."a long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase.
they take things flying.i don't think dartmoor has a chance." "who are her people?" grumbled the oldgentleman. "has she got any?" lord henry shook his head."american girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as english women are atconcealing their past," he said, rising to go. "they are pork-packers, i suppose?""i hope so, uncle george, for dartmoor's sake. i am told that pork-packing is the mostlucrative profession in america, after
politics.""is she pretty?" "she behaves as if she was beautiful. most american women do.it is the secret of their charm." "why can't these american women stay intheir own country? they are always telling us that it is theparadise for women." "it is. that is the reason why, like eve, they areso excessively anxious to get out of it," said lord henry."good-bye, uncle george. i shall be late for lunch, if i stop anylonger.
thanks for giving me the information iwanted. i always like to know everything about mynew friends, and nothing about my old ones.""where are you lunching, harry?" "at aunt agatha's. i have asked myself and mr. gray.he is her latest protege." "humph! tell your aunt agatha, harry, notto bother me any more with her charity appeals. i am sick of them.why, the good woman thinks that i have nothing to do but to write cheques for hersilly fads."
"all right, uncle george, i'll tell her,but it won't have any effect. philanthropic people lose all sense ofhumanity. it is their distinguishing characteristic." the old gentleman growled approvingly andrang the bell for his servant. lord henry passed up the low arcade intoburlington street and turned his steps in the direction of berkeley square. so that was the story of dorian gray'sparentage. crudely as it had been told to him, it hadyet stirred him by its suggestion of a strange, almost modern romance.
a beautiful woman risking everything for amad passion. a few wild weeks of happiness cut short bya hideous, treacherous crime. months of voiceless agony, and then a childborn in pain. the mother snatched away by death, the boyleft to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. yes; it was an interesting background.it posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it were.behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. worlds had to be in travail, that themeanest flower might blow....
and how charming he had been at dinner thenight before, as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he hadsat opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer rose thewakening wonder of his face. talking to him was like playing upon anexquisite violin. he answered to every touch and thrill ofthe bow.... there was something terribly enthralling inthe exercise of influence. no other activity was like it. to project one's soul into some graciousform, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoedback to one with all the added music of
passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it werea subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that--perhaps the mostsatisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, andgrossly common in its aims.... he was a marvellous type, too, this lad,whom by so curious a chance he had met in basil's studio, or could be fashioned intoa marvellous type, at any rate. grace was his, and the white purity ofboyhood, and beauty such as old greek marbles kept for us.there was nothing that one could not do
with him. he could be made a titan or a toy.what a pity it was that such beauty was destined to fade!...and basil? from a psychological point of view, howinteresting he was! the new manner in art, the fresh mode oflooking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence of one who wasunconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showingherself, dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her there hadbeen wakened that wonderful vision to which
alone are wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of thingsbecoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though theywere themselves patterns of some other and more perfect form whose shadow they madereal: how strange it all was! he remembered something like it in history.was it not plato, that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it? was it not buonarotti who had carved it inthe coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? but in our own century it was strange.... yes; he would try to be to dorian graywhat, without knowing it, the lad was to
the painter who had fashioned the wonderfulportrait. he would seek to dominate him--had already,indeed, half done so. he would make that wonderful spirit hisown. there was something fascinating in this sonof love and death. suddenly he stopped and glanced up at thehouses. he found that he had passed his aunt's somedistance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. when he entered the somewhat sombre hall,the butler told him that they had gone in to lunch.he gave one of the footmen his hat and
stick and passed into the dining-room. "late as usual, harry," cried his aunt,shaking her head at him. he invented a facile excuse, and havingtaken the vacant seat next to her, looked round to see who was there. dorian bowed to him shyly from the end ofthe table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek. opposite was the duchess of harley, a ladyof admirable good-nature and good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, andof those ample architectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are
described by contemporary historians asstoutness. next to her sat, on her right, sir thomasburdon, a radical member of parliament, who followed his leader in public life and inprivate life followed the best cooks, dining with the tories and thinking with the liberals, in accordance with a wise andwell-known rule. the post on her left was occupied by mr.erskine of treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who hadfallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to lady agatha, said everything that he had tosay before he was thirty.
his own neighbour was mrs. vandeleur, oneof his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so dreadfullydowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book. fortunately for him she had on the otherside lord faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as aministerial statement in the house of commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely earnest manner which is theone unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, that all really good people fallinto, and from which none of them ever quite escape.
"we are talking about poor dartmoor, lordhenry," cried the duchess, nodding pleasantly to him across the table."do you think he will really marry this fascinating young person?" "i believe she has made up her mind topropose to him, duchess." "how dreadful!" exclaimed lady agatha."really, some one should interfere." "i am told, on excellent authority, thather father keeps an american dry-goods store," said sir thomas burdon, lookingsupercilious. "my uncle has already suggested pork-packing, sir thomas." "dry-goods!
what are american dry-goods?" asked theduchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb."american novels," answered lord henry, helping himself to some quail. the duchess looked puzzled."don't mind him, my dear," whispered lady agatha."he never means anything that he says." "when america was discovered," said theradical member--and he began to give some wearisome facts.like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. the duchess sighed and exercised herprivilege of interruption.
"i wish to goodness it never had beendiscovered at all!" she exclaimed. "really, our girls have no chance nowadays. it is most unfair.""perhaps, after all, america never has been discovered," said mr. erskine; "i myselfwould say that it had merely been detected." "oh! but i have seen specimens of theinhabitants," answered the duchess vaguely. "i must confess that most of them areextremely pretty. and they dress well, too. they get all their dresses in paris.i wish i could afford to do the same."
"they say that when good americans die theygo to paris," chuckled sir thomas, who had a large wardrobe of humour's cast-offclothes. "really! and where do bad americans go to when theydie?" inquired the duchess. "they go to america," murmured lord henry.sir thomas frowned. "i am afraid that your nephew is prejudicedagainst that great country," he said to lady agatha. "i have travelled all over it in carsprovided by the directors, who, in such matters, are extremely civil.i assure you that it is an education to
visit it." "but must we really see chicago in order tobe educated?" asked mr. erskine plaintively."i don't feel up to the journey." sir thomas waved his hand. "mr. erskine of treadley has the world onhis shelves. we practical men like to see things, not toread about them. the americans are an extremely interestingpeople. they are absolutely reasonable.i think that is their distinguishing characteristic.
yes, mr. erskine, an absolutely reasonablepeople. i assure you there is no nonsense about theamericans." "how dreadful!" cried lord henry. "i can stand brute force, but brute reasonis quite unbearable. there is something unfair about its use.it is hitting below the intellect." "i do not understand you," said sir thomas,growing rather red. "i do, lord henry," murmured mr. erskine,with a smile. "paradoxes are all very well in theirway...." rejoined the baronet. "was that a paradox?" asked mr. erskine."i did not think so.
perhaps it was. well, the way of paradoxes is the way oftruth. to test reality we must see it on the tightrope. when the verities become acrobats, we canjudge them." "dear me!" said lady agatha, "how you menargue! i am sure i never can make out what you aretalking about. oh!harry, i am quite vexed with you. why do you try to persuade our nice mr.dorian gray to give up the east end? i assure you he would be quite invaluable.they would love his playing."
"i want him to play to me," cried lordhenry, smiling, and he looked down the table and caught a bright answering glance."but they are so unhappy in whitechapel," continued lady agatha. "i can sympathize with everything exceptsuffering," said lord henry, shrugging his shoulders."i cannot sympathize with that. it is too ugly, too horrible, toodistressing. there is something terribly morbid in themodern sympathy with pain. one should sympathize with the colour, thebeauty, the joy of life. the less said about life's sores, thebetter."
"still, the east end is a very importantproblem," remarked sir thomas with a grave shake of the head."quite so," answered the young lord. "it is the problem of slavery, and we tryto solve it by amusing the slaves." the politician looked at him keenly."what change do you propose, then?" he asked. lord henry laughed."i don't desire to change anything in england except the weather," he answered."i am quite content with philosophic contemplation. but, as the nineteenth century has gonebankrupt through an over-expenditure of
sympathy, i would suggest that we shouldappeal to science to put us straight. the advantage of the emotions is that theylead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.""but we have such grave responsibilities," ventured mrs. vandeleur timidly. "terribly grave," echoed lady agatha.lord henry looked over at mr. erskine. "humanity takes itself too seriously.it is the world's original sin. if the caveman had known how to laugh,history would have been different." "you are really very comforting," warbledthe duchess. "i have always felt rather guilty when icame to see your dear aunt, for i take no
interest at all in the east end.for the future i shall be able to look her in the face without a blush." "a blush is very becoming, duchess,"remarked lord henry. "only when one is young," she answered."when an old woman like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. ah!lord henry, i wish you would tell me how to become young again."he thought for a moment. "can you remember any great error that youcommitted in your early days, duchess?" he asked, looking at her across the table."a great many, i fear," she cried.
"then commit them over again," he saidgravely. "to get back one's youth, one has merely torepeat one's follies." "a delightful theory!" she exclaimed. "i must put it into practice.""a dangerous theory!" came from sir thomas's tight lips.lady agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. mr. erskine listened."yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. nowadays most people die of a sort ofcreeping common sense, and discover when it
is too late that the only things one neverregrets are one's mistakes." a laugh ran round the table. he played with the idea and grew wilful;tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made itiridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. the praise of folly, as he went on, soaredinto a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music ofpleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a bacchante over the hills of life,and mocked the slow silenus for being
sober.facts fled before her like frightened forest things. her white feet trod the huge press at whichwise omar sits, till the seething grape- juice rose round her bare limbs in waves ofpurple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat's black, dripping, sloping sides. it was an extraordinary improvisation. he felt that the eyes of dorian gray werefixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whosetemperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colourto his imagination.
he was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible.he charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, laughing. dorian gray never took his gaze off him,but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wondergrowing grave in his darkening eyes. at last, liveried in the costume of theage, reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that hercarriage was waiting. she wrung her hands in mock despair. "how annoying!" she cried."i must go. i have to call for my husband at the club,to take him to some absurd meeting at
willis's rooms, where he is going to be inthe chair. if i am late he is sure to be furious, andi couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. it is far too fragile.a harsh word would ruin it. no, i must go, dear agatha. good-bye, lord henry, you are quitedelightful and dreadfully demoralizing. i am sure i don't know what to say aboutyour views. you must come and dine with us some night. tuesday?are you disengaged tuesday?" "for you i would throw over anybody,duchess," said lord henry with a bow.
"ah! that is very nice, and very wrong ofyou," she cried; "so mind you come"; and she swept out of the room, followed by ladyagatha and the other ladies. when lord henry had sat down again, mr.erskine moved round, and taking a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm."you talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?" "i am too fond of reading books to care towrite them, mr. erskine. i should like to write a novel certainly,a novel that would be as lovely as a persian carpet and as unreal. but there is no literary public in englandfor anything except newspapers, primers,
and encyclopaedias. of all people in the world the english havethe least sense of the beauty of literature.""i fear you are right," answered mr. erskine. "i myself used to have literary ambitions,but i gave them up long ago. and now, my dear young friend, if you willallow me to call you so, may i ask if you really meant all that you said to us atlunch?" "i quite forget what i said," smiled lordhenry. "was it all very bad?""very bad indeed.
in fact i consider you extremely dangerous,and if anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as beingprimarily responsible. but i should like to talk to you aboutlife. the generation into which i was born wastedious. some day, when you are tired of london,come down to treadley and expound to me your philosophy of pleasure over someadmirable burgundy i am fortunate enough to possess." "i shall be charmed.a visit to treadley would be a great privilege.it has a perfect host, and a perfect
library." "you will complete it," answered the oldgentleman with a courteous bow. "and now i must bid good-bye to yourexcellent aunt. i am due at the athenaeum. it is the hour when we sleep there.""all of you, mr. erskine?" "forty of us, in forty arm-chairs.we are practising for an english academy of letters." lord henry laughed and rose."i am going to the park," he cried. as he was passing out of the door, doriangray touched him on the arm.
"let me come with you," he murmured. "but i thought you had promised basilhallward to go and see him," answered lord henry."i would sooner come with you; yes, i feel i must come with you. do let me.and you will promise to talk to me all the time?no one talks so wonderfully as you do." "ah! i have talked quite enough for to-day,"said lord henry, smiling. "all i want now is to look at life.you may come and look at it with me, if you
care to." chapter 4 one afternoon, a month later, dorian graywas reclining in a luxurious arm-chair, in the little library of lord henry's house inmayfair. it was, in its way, a very charming room,with its high panelled wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-colouredfrieze and ceiling of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn withsilk, long-fringed persian rugs. on a tiny satinwood table stood a statuetteby clodion, and beside it lay a copy of les cent nouvelles, bound for margaret ofvalois by clovis eve and powdered with the
gilt daisies that queen had selected forher device. some large blue china jars and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small leaded panes of thewindow streamed the apricot-coloured light of a summer day in london. lord henry had not yet come in.he was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is thethief of time. so the lad was looking rather sulky, aswith listless fingers he turned over the pages of an elaborately illustrated editionof manon lescaut that he had found in one of the book-cases.
the formal monotonous ticking of the louisquatorze clock annoyed him. once or twice he thought of going away.at last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. "how late you are, harry!" he murmured."i am afraid it is not harry, mr. gray," answered a shrill voice.he glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. "i beg your pardon.i thought--" "you thought it was my husband.it is only his wife. you must let me introduce myself.
i know you quite well by your photographs.i think my husband has got seventeen of them.""not seventeen, lady henry?" "well, eighteen, then. and i saw you with him the other night atthe opera." she laughed nervously as she spoke, andwatched him with her vague forget-me-not she was a curious woman, whose dressesalways looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. she was usually in love with somebody, and,as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions.she tried to look picturesque, but only
succeeded in being untidy. her name was victoria, and she had aperfect mania for going to church. "that was at lohengrin, lady henry, ithink?" "yes; it was at dear lohengrin. i like wagner's music better thananybody's. it is so loud that one can talk the wholetime without other people hearing what one says. that is a great advantage, don't you thinkso, mr. gray?" the same nervous staccato laugh broke fromher thin lips, and her fingers began to
play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife. dorian smiled and shook his head: "i amafraid i don't think so, lady henry. i never talk during music--at least, duringgood music. if one hears bad music, it is one's duty todrown it in conversation." "ah! that is one of harry's views, isn'tit, mr. gray? i always hear harry's views from hisfriends. it is the only way i get to know of them.but you must not think i don't like good music. i adore it, but i am afraid of it.it makes me too romantic.
i have simply worshipped pianists--two at atime, sometimes, harry tells me. i don't know what it is about them. perhaps it is that they are foreigners.they all are, ain't they? even those that are born in england becomeforeigners after a time, don't they? it is so clever of them, and such acompliment to art. makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it?you have never been to any of my parties, have you, mr. gray? you must come.i can't afford orchids, but i share no expense in foreigners.they make one's rooms look so picturesque.
but here is harry! harry, i came in to look for you, to askyou something--i forget what it was--and i found mr. gray here.we have had such a pleasant chat about we have quite the same ideas.no; i think our ideas are quite different. but he has been most pleasant.i am so glad i've seen him." "i am charmed, my love, quite charmed,"said lord henry, elevating his dark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking atthem both with an amused smile. "so sorry i am late, dorian. i went to look after a piece of old brocadein wardour street and had to bargain for
hours for it.nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." "i am afraid i must be going," exclaimedlady henry, breaking an awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh."i have promised to drive with the duchess. good-bye, mr. gray. good-bye, harry.you are dining out, i suppose? so am i.perhaps i shall see you at lady thornbury's." "i dare say, my dear," said lord henry,shutting the door behind her as, looking
like a bird of paradise that had been outall night in the rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour offrangipanni. then he lit a cigarette and flung himselfdown on the sofa. "never marry a woman with straw-colouredhair, dorian," he said after a few puffs. "why, harry?""because they are so sentimental." "but i like sentimental people." "never marry at all, dorian.men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both aredisappointed." "i don't think i am likely to marry, harry.
i am too much in love.that is one of your aphorisms. i am putting it into practice, as i doeverything that you say." "who are you in love with?" asked lordhenry after a pause. "with an actress," said dorian gray,blushing. lord henry shrugged his shoulders. "that is a rather commonplace debut.""you would not say so if you saw her, harry.""who is she?" "her name is sibyl vane." "never heard of her.""no one has.
people will some day, however.she is a genius." "my dear boy, no woman is a genius. women are a decorative sex.they never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. women represent the triumph of matter overmind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.""harry, how can you?" "my dear dorian, it is quite true. i am analysing women at present, so i oughtto know. the subject is not so abstruse as i thoughtit was.
i find that, ultimately, there are only twokinds of women, the plain and the coloured. the plain women are very useful. if you want to gain a reputation forrespectability, you have merely to take them down to supper.the other women are very charming. they commit one mistake, however. they paint in order to try and look young.our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.rouge and esprit used to go together. that is all over now. as long as a woman can look ten yearsyounger than her own daughter, she is
perfectly satisfied. as for conversation, there are only fivewomen in london worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decentsociety. however, tell me about your genius. how long have you known her?""ah! harry, your views terrify me.""never mind that. how long have you known her?" "about three weeks.""and where did you come across her?" "i will tell you, harry, but you mustn't beunsympathetic about it.
after all, it never would have happened ifi had not met you. you filled me with a wild desire to knoweverything about life. for days after i met you, something seemedto throb in my veins. as i lounged in the park, or strolled downpiccadilly, i used to look at every one who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity,what sort of lives they led. some of them fascinated me. others filled me with terror.there was an exquisite poison in the air. i had a passion for sensations.... well, one evening about seven o'clock, idetermined to go out in search of some
adventure. i felt that this grey monstrous london ofours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, asyou once phrased it, must have something in store for me. i fancied a thousand things.the mere danger gave me a sense of delight. i remembered what you had said to me onthat wonderful evening when we first dined together, about the search for beauty beingthe real secret of life. i don't know what i expected, but i wentout and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets andblack grassless squares.
about half-past eight i passed by an absurdlittle theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. a hideous jew, in the most amazingwaistcoat i ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vilecigar. he had greasy ringlets, and an enormousdiamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt. 'have a box, my lord?' he said, when he sawme, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility.there was something about him, harry, that amused me.
he was such a monster.you will laugh at me, i know, but i really went in and paid a whole guinea for thestage-box. to the present day i can't make out why idid so; and yet if i hadn't--my dear harry, if i hadn't--i should have missed thegreatest romance of my life. i see you are laughing. it is horrid of you!""i am not laughing, dorian; at least i am not laughing at you.but you should not say the greatest romance of your life. you should say the first romance of yourlife.
you will always be loved, and you willalways be in love with love. a grande passion is the privilege of peoplewho have nothing to do. that is the one use of the idle classes ofa country. don't be afraid. there are exquisite things in store foryou. this is merely the beginning.""do you think my nature so shallow?" cried dorian gray angrily. "no; i think your nature so deep.""how do you mean?" "my dear boy, the people who love only oncein their lives are really the shallow
people. what they call their loyalty, and theirfidelity, i call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. faithfulness is to the emotional life whatconsistency is to the life of the intellect--simply a confession of failure.faithfulness! i must analyse it some day. the passion for property is in it.there are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that othersmight pick them up. but i don't want to interrupt you.
go on with your story.""well, i found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. i looked out from behind the curtain andsurveyed the house. it was a tawdry affair, all cupids andcornucopias, like a third-rate wedding- cake. the gallery and pit were fairly full, butthe two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and there was hardly a person inwhat i suppose they called the dress- circle. women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there was a terrible consumption
of nuts going on.""it must have been just like the palmy days of the british drama." "just like, i should fancy, and verydepressing. i began to wonder what on earth i should dowhen i caught sight of the play-bill. what do you think the play was, harry?" "i should think 'the idiot boy', or 'dumbbut innocent'. our fathers used to like that sort ofpiece, i believe. the longer i live, dorian, the more keenlyi feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.in art, as in politics, les grandperes ont
toujours tort." "this play was good enough for us, harry.it was romeo and juliet. i must admit that i was rather annoyed atthe idea of seeing shakespeare done in such a wretched hole of a place. still, i felt interested, in a sort of way.at any rate, i determined to wait for the first act. there was a dreadful orchestra, presidedover by a young hebrew who sat at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but atlast the drop-scene was drawn up and the play began.
romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, withcorked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure like a beer-barrel.mercutio was almost as bad. he was played by the low-comedian, who hadintroduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit. they were both as grotesque as the scenery,and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth.but juliet! harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeenyears of age, with a little, flowerlike face, a small greek head with plaited coilsof dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were like thepetals of a rose.
she was the loveliest thing i had ever seenin my life. you said to me once that pathos left youunmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. i tell you, harry, i could hardly see thisgirl for the mist of tears that came across me.and her voice--i never heard such a voice. it was very low at first, with deep mellownotes that seemed to fall singly upon one's ear.then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautboy. in the garden-scene it had all thetremulous ecstasy that one hears just
before dawn when nightingales are singing.there were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. you know how a voice can stir one.your voice and the voice of sibyl vane are two things that i shall never forget.when i close my eyes, i hear them, and each of them says something different. i don't know which to follow.why should i not love her? harry, i do love her.she is everything to me in life. night after night i go to see her play. one evening she is rosalind, and the nextevening she is imogen.
i have seen her die in the gloom of anitalian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. i have watched her wandering through theforest of arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. she has been mad, and has come into thepresence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. she has been innocent, and the black handsof jealousy have crushed her reedlike throat.i have seen her in every age and in every costume.
ordinary women never appeal to one'simagination. they are limited to their century.no glamour ever transfigures them. one knows their minds as easily as oneknows their bonnets. one can always find them.there is no mystery in any of them. they ride in the park in the morning andchatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. they have their stereotyped smile and theirfashionable manner. they are quite obvious. but an actress!how different an actress is! harry! why didn't you tell me that the onlything worth loving is an actress?"
"because i have loved so many of them,dorian." "oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair andpainted faces." "don't run down dyed hair and paintedfaces. there is an extraordinary charm in them,sometimes," said lord henry. "i wish now i had not told you about sibylvane." "you could not have helped telling me,dorian. all through your life you will tell meeverything you do." "yes, harry, i believe that is true.i cannot help telling you things. you have a curious influence over me.
if i ever did a crime, i would come andconfess it to you. you would understand me.""people like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes, dorian. but i am much obliged for the compliment,all the same. and now tell me--reach me the matches, likea good boy--thanks--what are your actual relations with sibyl vane?" dorian gray leaped to his feet, withflushed cheeks and burning eyes. "harry!sibyl vane is sacred!" "it is only the sacred things that areworth touching, dorian," said lord henry,
with a strange touch of pathos in hisvoice. "but why should you be annoyed? i suppose she will belong to you some day.when one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always endsby deceiving others. that is what the world calls a romance. you know her, at any rate, i suppose?""of course i know her. on the first night i was at the theatre,the horrid old jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offeredto take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.
i was furious with him, and told him thatjuliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marbletomb in verona. i think, from his blank look of amazement,that he was under the impression that i had taken too much champagne, or something.""i am not surprised." "then he asked me if i wrote for any of thenewspapers. i told him i never even read them. he seemed terribly disappointed at that,and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him,and that they were every one of them to be bought."
"i should not wonder if he was quite rightthere. but, on the other hand, judging from theirappearance, most of them cannot be at all expensive." "well, he seemed to think they were beyondhis means," laughed dorian. "by this time, however, the lights werebeing put out in the theatre, and i had to he wanted me to try some cigars that hestrongly recommended. i declined.the next night, of course, i arrived at the place again. when he saw me, he made me a low bow andassured me that i was a munificent patron
of art. he was a most offensive brute, though hehad an extraordinary passion for shakespeare. he told me once, with an air of pride, thathis five bankruptcies were entirely due to 'the bard,' as he insisted on calling him.he seemed to think it a distinction." "it was a distinction, my dear dorian--agreat distinction. most people become bankrupt through havinginvested too heavily in the prose of life. to have ruined one's self over poetry is anhonour. but when did you first speak to miss sibylvane?"
"the third night. she had been playing rosalind.i could not help going round. i had thrown her some flowers, and she hadlooked at me--at least i fancied that she had. the old jew was persistent.he seemed determined to take me behind, so i consented.it was curious my not wanting to know her, wasn't it?" "no; i don't think so.""my dear harry, why?" "i will tell you some other time.now i want to know about the girl."
"sibyl? oh, she was so shy and so gentle.there is something of a child about her. her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonderwhen i told her what i thought of her performance, and she seemed quiteunconscious of her power. i think we were both rather nervous. the old jew stood grinning at the doorwayof the dusty greenroom, making elaborate speeches about us both, while we stoodlooking at each other like children. he would insist on calling me 'my lord,' soi had to assure sibyl that i was not anything of the kind.she said quite simply to me, 'you look more
like a prince. i must call you prince charming.'""upon my word, dorian, miss sibyl knows how to pay compliments.""you don't understand her, harry. she regarded me merely as a person in aplay. she knows nothing of life. she lives with her mother, a faded tiredwoman who played lady capulet in a sort of magenta dressing-wrapper on the firstnight, and looks as if she had seen better days." "i know that look.it depresses me," murmured lord henry,
examining his rings."the jew wanted to tell me her history, but i said it did not interest me." "you were quite right.there is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.""sibyl is the only thing i care about. what is it to me where she came from? from her little head to her little feet,she is absolutely and entirely divine. every night of my life i go to see her act,and every night she is more marvellous." "that is the reason, i suppose, that younever dine with me now. i thought you must have some curiousromance on hand.
you have; but it is not quite what iexpected." "my dear harry, we either lunch or suptogether every day, and i have been to the opera with you several times," said dorian,opening his blue eyes in wonder. "you always come dreadfully late." "well, i can't help going to see sibylplay," he cried, "even if it is only for a single act. i get hungry for her presence; and when ithink of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, i am filledwith awe." "you can dine with me to-night, dorian,can't you?"
he shook his head."to-night she is imogen," he answered, "and to-morrow night she will be juliet." "when is she sibyl vane?""never." "i congratulate you.""how horrid you are! she is all the great heroines of the worldin one. she is more than an individual.you laugh, but i tell you she has genius. i love her, and i must make her love me. you, who know all the secrets of life, tellme how to charm sibyl vane to love me! i want to make romeo jealous.i want the dead lovers of the world to hear
our laughter and grow sad. i want a breath of our passion to stirtheir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.my god, harry, how i worship her!" he was walking up and down the room as hespoke. hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks.he was terribly excited. lord henry watched him with a subtle senseof pleasure. how different he was now from the shyfrightened boy he had met in basil hallward's studio! his nature had developed like a flower, hadborne blossoms of scarlet flame.
out of its secret hiding-place had crepthis soul, and desire had come to meet it on the way. "and what do you propose to do?" said lordhenry at last. "i want you and basil to come with me somenight and see her act. i have not the slightest fear of theresult. you are certain to acknowledge her genius.then we must get her out of the jew's hands. she is bound to him for three years--atleast for two years and eight months--from the present time.i shall have to pay him something, of
course. when all that is settled, i shall take awest end theatre and bring her out properly.she will make the world as mad as she has made me." "that would be impossible, my dear boy.""yes, she will. she has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it ispersonalities, not principles, that move the age." "well, what night shall we go?""let me see.
to-day is tuesday.let us fix to-morrow. she plays juliet to-morrow." "all right.the bristol at eight o'clock; and i will get basil.""not eight, harry, please. half-past six. we must be there before the curtain rises.you must see her in the first act, where she meets romeo.""half-past six! what an hour! it will be like having a meat-tea, orreading an english novel.
it must be seven.no gentleman dines before seven. shall you see basil between this and then? or shall i write to him?""dear basil! i have not laid eyes on him for a week. it is rather horrid of me, as he has sentme my portrait in the most wonderful frame, specially designed by himself, and, thoughi am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than i am, imust admit that i delight in it. perhaps you had better write to him.i don't want to see him alone. he says things that annoy me.
he gives me good advice."lord henry smiled. "people are very fond of giving away whatthey need most themselves. it is what i call the depth of generosity." "oh, basil is the best of fellows, but heseems to me to be just a bit of a philistine.since i have known you, harry, i have discovered that." "basil, my dear boy, puts everything thatis charming in him into his work. the consequence is that he has nothing leftfor life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common sense.
the only artists i have ever known who arepersonally delightful are bad artists. good artists exist simply in what theymake, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. a great poet, a really great poet, is themost unpoetical of all creatures. but inferior poets are absolutelyfascinating. the worse their rhymes are, the morepicturesque they look. the mere fact of having published a book ofsecond-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. he lives the poetry that he cannot write.the others write the poetry that they dare
not realize." "i wonder is that really so, harry?" saiddorian gray, putting some perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-toppedbottle that stood on the table. "it must be, if you say it. and now i am off.imogen is waiting for me. don't forget about to-morrow.good-bye." as he left the room, lord henry's heavyeyelids drooped, and he began to think. certainly few people had ever interestedhim so much as dorian gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else causedhim not the slightest pang of annoyance or
jealousy. he was pleased by it.it made him a more interesting study. he had been always enthralled by themethods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-matter of that science hadseemed to him trivial and of no import. and so he had begun by vivisecting himself,as he had ended by vivisecting others. human life--that appeared to him the onething worth investigating. compared to it there was nothing else ofany value. it was true that as one watched life in itscurious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask ofglass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from
troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fanciesand misshapen dreams. there were poisons so subtle that to knowtheir properties one had to sicken of them. there were maladies so strange that one hadto pass through them if one sought to understand their nature.and, yet, what a great reward one received! how wonderful the whole world became toone! to note the curious hard logic of passion,and the emotional coloured life of the intellect--to observe where they met, andwhere they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they wereat discord--there was a delight in that!
what matter what the cost was?one could never pay too high a price for any sensation. he was conscious--and the thought brought agleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes--that it was through certain words ofhis, musical words said with musical utterance, that dorian gray's soul had turned to this white girl and bowed inworship before her. to a large extent the lad was his owncreation. he had made him premature. that was something.ordinary people waited till life disclosed
to them its secrets, but to the few, to theelect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. sometimes this was the effect of art, andchiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and theintellect. but now and then a complex personality tookthe place and assumed the office of art, was indeed, in its way, a real work of art,life having its elaborate masterpieces, just as poetry has, or sculpture, orpainting. yes, the lad was premature.he was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring.
the pulse and passion of youth were in him,but he was becoming self-conscious. it was delightful to watch him.with his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. it was no matter how it all ended, or wasdestined to end. he was like one of those gracious figuresin a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stirone's sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses. soul and body, body and soul--howmysterious they were! there was animalism in the soul, and thebody had its moments of spirituality.
the senses could refine, and the intellectcould degrade. who could say where the fleshly impulseceased, or the psychical impulse began? how shallow were the arbitrary definitionsof ordinary psychologists! and yet how difficult to decide between theclaims of the various schools! was the soul a shadow seated in the houseof sin? or was the body really in the soul, asgiordano bruno thought? the separation of spirit from matter was amystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also. he began to wonder whether we could evermake psychology so absolute a science that
each little spring of life would berevealed to us. as it was, we always misunderstoodourselves and rarely understood others. experience was of no ethical value.it was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as amode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formationof character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed uswhat to avoid. but there was no motive power inexperience. it was as little of an active cause asconscience itself.
all that it really demonstrated was thatour future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and withloathing, we would do many times, and with joy. it was clear to him that the experimentalmethod was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis ofthe passions; and certainly dorian gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed topromise rich and fruitful results. his sudden mad love for sibyl vane was apsychological phenomenon of no small interest. there was no doubt that curiosity had muchto do with it, curiosity and the desire for
new experiences, yet it was not a simple,but rather a very complex passion. what there was in it of the purely sensuousinstinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changedinto something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from sense, and was for that very reason all the moredangerous. it was the passions about whose origin wedeceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. our weakest motives were those of whosenature we were conscious. it often happened that when we thought wewere experimenting on others we were really
experimenting on ourselves. while lord henry sat dreaming on thesethings, a knock came to the door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was timeto dress for dinner. he got up and looked out into the street. the sunset had smitten into scarlet goldthe upper windows of the houses opposite. the panes glowed like plates of heatedmetal. the sky above was like a faded rose. he thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and wondered how it was all going to end.
when he arrived home, about half-pasttwelve o'clock, he saw a telegram lying on the hall table.he opened it and found it was from dorian gray. it was to tell him that he was engaged tobe married to sibyl vane.
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