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uploaded 16 hours 33 mins ago 1891 \r\n THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY \r\n \r\n by Oscar Wilde \r\n \r\n \r\n CHAPTER I \r\n- \r\n The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the \r\nlight summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came \r\nthrough the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more \r\ndelicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. \r\n From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he \r\nwas lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord \r\nHenry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and \r\nhoney-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed \r\nhardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and \r\nnow and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across \r\nthe long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the \r\nhuge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making \r\nhim think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through \r\nthe medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey \r\nthe sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees \r\nshouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling \r\nwith monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the \r\nstraggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The \r\ndim roar of London was like the burdon note of a distant organ. \r\n In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the \r\nfull-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal \r\nbeauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the \r\nartist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some \r\nyears ago caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise \r\nto so many strange conjectures. \r\n As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so \r\nskilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his \r\nface, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, \r\nand, closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though \r\nhe sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which \r\nhe feared he might awake. \r\n \"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,\" \r\nsaid Lord Henry, languidly. \"You must certainly send it next year to \r\nthe Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I \r\nhave gone there, there have either been so many people that I have not \r\nbeen able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures \r\nthat I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The \r\nGrosvenor is really the only place.\" \r\n \"I don\'t think I shall send it anywhere,\" he answered, tossing his \r\nhead back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him \r\nat Oxford. \"No; I won\'t send it anywhere.\" \r\n Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows, and looked at him in amazement \r\nthrough the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful \r\nwhorls from his heavy opium-tainted cigarette. \r\n \"Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? \r\nWhat odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to \r\ngain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to \r\nthrow it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in \r\nthe world worse than being talked about, and that is not being \r\ntalked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the \r\nyoung men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men \r\nare ever capable of any emotion.\" \r\n \"I know you will laugh at me,\" he replied, \"but I really can\'t \r\nexhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it.\" \r\n Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. \r\n \"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.\" \r\n \"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn\'t know \r\nyou were so vain; and I really can\'t see any resemblance between \r\nyou, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this \r\nyoung Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and \r\nrose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you- well, \r\nof course you have an intellectual expression, and all that. But \r\nbeauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. \r\nIntellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the \r\nharmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes \r\nall nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful \r\nmen in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! \r\nExcept, of course, in the church. But then in the church they don\'t \r\nthink. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was \r\ntold to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural \r\nconsequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious \r\nyoung friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture \r\nreally fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is \r\nsome brainless, beautiful creature, who should always be here in \r\nwinter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer \r\nwhen we want something to chill our intelligence. Don\'t flatter \r\nyourself, Basil, you are not in the least like him.\" \r\n \"You don\'t understand me, Harry,\" answered the artist. \"Of course \r\nI am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be \r\nsorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the \r\ntruth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual \r\ndistinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history \r\nthe faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from \r\none\'s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this \r\nworld. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know \r\nnothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of \r\ndefeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and \r\nwithout disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever \r\nreceive it, from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my \r\nbrains, such as they are- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian \r\nGray\'s good looks- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given \r\nus, suffer terribly.\" \r\n \"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?\" asked Lord Henry, walking across \r\nthe studio towards Basil Hallward. \r\n \"Yes, that is his name. I didn\'t intend to tell it to you.\" \r\n \"But why not?\" \r\n \"Oh, I can\'t explain. When I like people immensely I never tell \r\ntheir names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have \r\ngrown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make \r\nmodern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is \r\ndelightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my \r\npeople where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is \r\na silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great \r\ndeal of romance into one\'s life. I suppose you think me awfully \r\nfoolish about it?\" \r\n \"Not at all,\" answered Lord Henry, \"not at all, my dear Basil. You \r\nseem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is \r\nthat it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both \r\nparties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I \r\nam doing. When we meet- we do meet occasionally, when we dine out \r\ntogether, or go down to the Duke\'s- we tell each other the most absurd \r\nstories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it- \r\nmuch better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her \r\ndates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no \r\nrow at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me.\" \r\n \"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,\" said Basil \r\nHallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. \"I \r\nbelieve that you are really a very good husband, but that you are \r\nthoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary \r\nfellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. \r\nYour cynicism is simply a pose.\" \r\n \"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I \r\nknow,\" cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into \r\nthe garden together, and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat \r\nthat stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped \r\nover the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous. \r\n After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. \"I am afraid I \r\nmust be going, Basil,\" he murmured, \"and before I go, I insist on your \r\nanswering a question I put to you some time ago.\" \r\n \"What is that?\" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the \r\nground. \r\n \"You know quite well.\" \r\n \"I do not, Harry.\" \r\n \"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why \r\nyou won\'t exhibit Dorian Gray\'s picture. I want the real reason.\" \r\n \"I told you the real reason.\" \r\n \"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of \r\nyourself in it. Now, that is childish.\" \r\n \"Harry,\" said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, \r\n\"every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the \r\nartist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the \r\noccasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather \r\nthe painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I \r\nwill not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in \r\nit the secret of my own soul.\" \r\n Lord Henry laughed. \"And what is that?\" he asked. \r\n \"I will tell you,\" said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity \r\ncame over his face. \r\n \"I am all expectation, Basil,\" continued his companion, glancing \r\nat him. \r\n \"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,\" answered the \r\npainter; \"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you \r\nwill hardly believe it.\" \r\n Lord Henry smiled, and, leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled \r\ndaisy from the grass, and examined it. \"I am quite sure I shall \r\nunderstand it,\" he replied, gazing intently at the little golden \r\nwhite-feathered disk, \"and as for believing things, I can believe \r\nanything, provided that it is quite incredible.\" \r\n The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy \r\nlilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the \r\nlanguid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a \r\nblue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze \r\nwings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward\'s heart \r\nbeating, and wondered what was coming. \r\n \"The story is simply this,\" said the painter after some time. \"Two \r\nmonths ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon\'s. You know we poor \r\nartists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to \r\nremind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and \r\na white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can \r\ngain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the \r\nroom about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and \r\ntedious Academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was \r\nlooking at me. I turned halfway round, and saw Dorian Gray for the \r\nfirst time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A \r\ncurious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come \r\nface to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating \r\nthat, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my \r\nwhole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external \r\ninfluence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am \r\nby nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always \r\nbeen so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then- but I don\'t know how to explain \r\nit to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a \r\nterrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in \r\nstore for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid, \r\nand turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do it: \r\nit was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to \r\nescape.\" \r\n \"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. \r\nConscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.\" \r\n \"I don\'t believe that, Harry, and I don\'t believe you do either. \r\nHowever, whatever was my motive- and it may have been pride, for I \r\nused to be very proud- I certainly struggled to the door. There, of \r\ncourse, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. \'You are not going to run \r\naway so soon, Mr. Hallward?\' she screamed out. You know her \r\ncuriously shrill voice?\" \r\n \"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,\" said Lord Henry, \r\npulling the daisy to bits with his long, nervous fingers. \r\n \"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to Royalties, and \r\npeople with Stars and Garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras \r\nand parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only \r\nmet her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I \r\nbelieve some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, \r\nat least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is \r\nthe nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found \r\nmyself face to face with the young man whose personality had so \r\nstrangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes \r\nmet again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to \r\nintroduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was \r\nsimply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any \r\nintroduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, \r\ntoo, felt that we were destined to know each other.\" \r\n \"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?\" \r\nasked his companion. \"I know she goes in for giving a rapid precis \r\nof all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and \r\nred-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, \r\nand hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been \r\nperfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding \r\ndetails. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady \r\nBrandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. \r\nShe either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything \r\nabout them except what one wants to know.\" \r\n \"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!\" said Hallward, \r\nlistlessly. \r\n \"My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in \r\nopening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did \r\nshe say about Mr. Dorian Gray?\" \r\n \"Oh, something like \'Charming boy- poor dear mother and I absolutely \r\ninseparable. Quite forget what he does- afraid he- doesn\'t do \r\nanything- oh, yes, plays the piano- or is it the violin, dear Mr. \r\nGray?\' Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at \r\nonce.\" \r\n \"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it \r\nis far the best ending for one,\" said the young lord, plucking another \r\ndaisy. \r\n Hallward shook his head. \"You don\'t understand what friendship is, \r\nHarry,\" he murmured- \"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like \r\nevery one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.\" \r\n \"How horribly unjust of you!\" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat \r\nback, and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins \r\nof glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of \r\nthe summer sky. \"Yes, horribly unjust of you. I make a great \r\ndifference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, \r\nmy acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their \r\ngood intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his \r\nenemies. I have not got one who is a fool, they are all men of some \r\nintellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that \r\nvery vain of me? I think it is rather vain.\" \r\n \"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must \r\nbe merely an acquaintance.\" \r\n \"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance.\" \r\n \"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?\" \r\n \"Oh, brothers! I don\'t care for brothers. My elder brother won\'t \r\ndie, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.\" \r\n \"Harry!\" exclaimed Hallward, frowning. \r\n \"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can\'t help \r\ndetesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none \r\nof us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I \r\nquite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what \r\nthey call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that \r\ndrunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special \r\nproperty, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself he is \r\npoaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the \r\nDivorce Court, their indignation was quite magnificent. And yet I \r\ndon\'t suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat live correctly.\" \r\n \"I don\'t agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is \r\nmore, Harry, I feel sure that you don\'t either.\" \r\n Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard, and tapped the toe of \r\nhis patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. \"How English \r\nyou are, Basil! That is the second time you have made that \r\nobservation. If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman- \r\nalways a rash thing to do- he never dreams of considering whether \r\nthe idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any \r\nimportance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an \r\nidea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who \r\nexpresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere \r\nthe man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in \r\nthat case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or \r\nhis prejudices. However, I don\'t propose to discuss politics, \r\nsociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than \r\nprinciples, and I like persons with no principles better than anything \r\nelse in the world. Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do \r\nyou see him?\" \r\n \"Every day. I couldn\'t be happy if I didn\'t see him every day. He is \r\nabsolutely necessary to me.\" \r\n \"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything \r\nbut your art.\" \r\n \"He is all my art to me now,\" said the painter, gravely. \"I \r\nsometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance \r\nin the world\'s history. The first is the appearance of a new medium \r\nfor art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art \r\nalso. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the \r\nface of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian \r\nGray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, \r\ndraw from him, sketch from him. Of course I have done all that. But he \r\nis much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won\'t tell you that I \r\nam dissatisfied with what I have done of him or that his beauty is \r\nsuch that Art cannot express it. There is nothing that Art cannot \r\nexpress, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian \r\nGray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious \r\nway- I wonder will you understand me?- his personality has suggested \r\nto me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. \r\nI see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now \r\nre-create life in a way that was hidden from me before. \'A dream of \r\nform in days of thought:\'- who is it who says that? I forget; but it \r\nis what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of \r\nthis lad- for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is \r\nreally over twenty- his merely visible presence- ah! I wonder can \r\nyou realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the \r\nlines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the \r\npassion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit \r\nthat is Greek. The harmony of soul and body- how much that is! We in \r\nour madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that \r\nis vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what \r\nDorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which \r\nAgnew offered me such a huge price, but which I would not part with? \r\nIt is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? \r\nBecause, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some \r\nsubtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my \r\nlife I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for, \r\nand always missed.\" \r\n \"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray.\" \r\n Hallward got up from his seat, and walked up and down the garden. \r\nAfter some time he came back. \"Harry,\" he said, \"Dorian Gray is to \r\nme simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see \r\neverything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no \r\nimage of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new \r\nmanner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness \r\nand subtleties of certain colours. That is all.\" \r\n \"Then why won\'t you exhibit his portrait?\" asked Lord Henry. \r\n \"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression \r\nof all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have \r\nnever cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never \r\nknow anything about it. But the world might guess it; and I will not \r\nbare my soul to their shallow, prying eyes. My heart shall never be \r\nput under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the \r\nthing, Harry- too much of myself!\" \r\n \"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful \r\npassion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many \r\neditions.\" \r\n \"I hate them for it,\" cried Hallward. \"An artist should create \r\nbeautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We \r\nlive in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form \r\nof autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some \r\nday I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world \r\nshall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.\" \r\n \"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won\'t argue with you. It is \r\nonly the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray \r\nvery fond of you?\" \r\n The painter considered for a few moments. \"He likes me,\" he answered \r\nafter a pause; \"I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him \r\ndreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I \r\nknow I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to \r\nme, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and \r\nthen, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real \r\ndelight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given \r\naway my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to \r\nput in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an \r\nornament for a summer\'s day.\" \r\n \"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,\" murmured Lord Henry. \r\n\"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think \r\nof, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That \r\naccounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate \r\nourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have \r\nsomething that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and \r\nfacts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly \r\nwell-informed man- that is the modern idea. And the mind of the \r\nthoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a \r\nbric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced \r\nabove its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. \r\nSome day you will look at your friend and he will seem to you to be \r\na little out of drawing, or you won\'t like his tone of colour, or \r\nsomething. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and \r\nseriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time \r\nhe calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a \r\ngreat pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a \r\nromance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a \r\nromance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic.\" \r\n \"Harry, don\'t talk like that. As long as I live, the personality \r\nof Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can\'t feel what I feel. You \r\nchange too often.\" \r\n \"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are \r\nfaithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who \r\nknow love\'s tragedies.\" And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty \r\nsilver case, and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious \r\nand satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There \r\nwas a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the \r\nivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass \r\nlike swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful \r\nother people\'s emotions were!- much more delightful than their \r\nideas, it seemed to him. One\'s own soul, and the passions of one\'s \r\nfriends- those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to \r\nhimself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had \r\nmissed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his \r\naunt\'s, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and \r\nthe whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the \r\npoor, and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would \r\nhave preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise \r\nthere was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have \r\nspoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the \r\ndignity of labour. It was charming to have escaped all that! As he \r\nthought of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him. He turned to \r\nHallward, and said, \"My dear fellow, I have just remembered.\" \r\n \"Remembered what, Harry?\" \r\n \"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray.\" \r\n \"Where was it?\" asked Hallward, with a slight frown. \r\n \"Don\'t look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha\'s. She \r\ntold me she had discovered a wonderful young man, who was going to \r\nhelp her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am \r\nbound to state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women \r\nhave no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. She \r\nsaid that he was very earnest, and had a beautiful nature. I at once \r\npictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, \r\nhorribly freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known \r\nit was your friend.\" \r\n \"I am very glad you didn\'t, Harry.\" \r\n \"Why?\" \r\n \"I don\'t want you to meet him.\" \r\n \"You don\'t want me to meet him?\" \r\n \"No.\" \r\n \"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir,\" said the butler, coming \r\ninto the garden. \r\n \"You must introduce me now,\" cried Lord Henry, laughing. \r\n The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the \r\nsunlight. \"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few \r\nmoments.\" The man bowed, and went up the walk. \r\n Then he looked at Lord Henry. \"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend,\" he \r\nsaid. \"He has a simple and beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right \r\nin what she said of him. Don\'t spoil him. Don\'t try to influence \r\nhim. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many \r\nmarvellous people in it. Don\'t take away from me the one person who \r\ngives to my art whatever charm it possesses; my life as an artist \r\ndepends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you.\" He spoke very slowly, and \r\nthe words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will. \r\n \"What nonsense you talk!\" said Lord Henry, smiling, and, taking \r\nHallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house. \r\n \r\n \r\n CHAPTER II \r\n- \r\n As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, \r\nwith his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of \r\nSchumann\'s \"Forest Scenes.\" \"You must lend me these, Basil,\" he cried. \r\n\"I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming.\" \r\n \"That depends entirely on how you sit to-day, Dorian.\" \r\n \"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don\'t want a life-sized portrait \r\nof myself,\" answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool, in \r\na wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint \r\nblush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. \"I beg your \r\npardon, Basil, but I didn\'t know you had any one with you.\" \r\n \"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. \r\nI have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now \r\nyou have spoiled everything.\" \r\n \"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,\" said \r\nLord Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand. \"My aunt has \r\noften spoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am \r\nafraid, one of her victims, also.\" \r\n \"I am in Lady Agatha\'s black books at present,\" answered Dorian, \r\nwith a funny look of penitence. \"I promised to go to a club in \r\nWhitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. \r\nWe were to have played a duet together- three duets, I believe. I \r\ndon\'t know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call.\" \r\n \"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to \r\nyou. And I don\'t think it really matters about your not being there. \r\nThe audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits \r\ndown to the piano she makes quite enough noise for two people.\" \r\n \"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,\" answered \r\nDorian, laughing. \r\n Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully \r\nhandsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, \r\nhis crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one \r\ntrust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as \r\nall youth\'s passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself \r\nunspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. \r\n \"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray- far too \r\ncharming.\" And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan, and \r\nopened his cigarette-case. \r\n The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes \r\nready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry\'s last \r\nremark he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, \r\n\"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it \r\nawfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?\" \r\n Lord Henry smiled, and looked at Dorian Gray. \"Am I to go, Mr. \r\nGray?\" he asked. \r\n \"Oh, please don\'t, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his \r\nsulky moods; and I can\'t bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you \r\nto tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy.\" \r\n \"I don\'t know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious \r\na subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I \r\ncertainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. \r\nYou don\'t really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that \r\nyou liked your sitters to have some one to chat to.\" \r\n Hallward bit his lip. \"If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. \r\nDorian\'s whims are laws to everybody, except himself.\" \r\n Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. \"You are very pressing, \r\nBasil, but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the \r\nOrleans. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in \r\nCurzon Street. I am nearly always at home at five o\'clock. Write to me \r\nwhen you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you.\" \r\n \"Basil,\" cried Dorian Gray, \"if Lord Henry Wotton goes I shall go \r\ntoo. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is \r\nhorribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. \r\nAsk him to stay. I insist upon it.\" \r\n \"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,\" said Hallward, \r\ngazing intently at his picture. \"It is quite true, I never talk when I \r\nam working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious \r\nfor my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay.\" \r\n \"But what about my man at the Orleans?\" \r\n The painter laughed. \"I don\'t think there will be any difficulty \r\nabout that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the \r\nplatform, and don\'t move about too much, or pay any attention to \r\nwhat Lord Henry says. He has a very bad influence over all his \r\nfriends, with the single exception of myself.\" \r\n Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek \r\nmartyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he \r\nhad rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a \r\ndelightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few \r\nmoments he said to him, \"Have you really a very bad influence, Lord \r\nHenry? As bad as Basil says?\" \r\n \"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence \r\nis immoral- immoral from the scientific point of view.\" \r\n \"Why?\" \r\n \"Because to influence a person is to give him one\'s own soul. He \r\ndoes not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural \r\npassions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such \r\nthings as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else\'s \r\nmusic, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim \r\nof life is self-development. To realize one\'s nature perfectly- that \r\nis what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, \r\nnowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that \r\none owes to one\'s self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the \r\nhungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are \r\nnaked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had \r\nit. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of \r\nGod, which is the secret of religion- these are the two things that \r\ngovern us. And yet--\" \r\n \"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good \r\nboy,\" said the painter, deep in his work, and conscious only that a \r\nlook had come into the lad\'s face that he had never seen there before. \r\n \"And yet,\" continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with \r\nthat graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of \r\nhim, and that he had even in his Eton days, \"I believe that if one man \r\nwere to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to \r\nevery feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream- \r\nI believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that \r\nwe would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the \r\nHellenic ideal- to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, \r\nit may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The \r\nmutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial \r\nthat mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse \r\nthat we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The \r\nbody sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of \r\npurification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, \r\nor the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation \r\nis to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing \r\nfor the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its \r\nmonstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that \r\nthe great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the \r\nbrain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place \r\nalso. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your \r\nrose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, \r\nthoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping \r\ndreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame-\" \r\n \"Stop!\" faltered Dorian Gray, \"stop! you bewilder me. I don\'t know \r\nwhat to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. \r\nDon\'t speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think.\" \r\n For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips, \r\nand eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely \r\nfresh influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to \r\nhave come really from himself. The few words that Basil\'s friend had \r\nsaid to him- words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox \r\nin them- had touched some secret chord that had never been touched \r\nbefore, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious \r\npulses. \r\n Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many \r\ntimes. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but \r\nrather another chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How \r\nterrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel. One could not \r\nescape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them. \r\nThey seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, \r\nand to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of \r\nlute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? \r\n Yes, there had been things in his boyhood that he had not \r\nunderstood. He understood them now. Life suddenly had become \r\nfiery-coloured to him. It seemed to him that he had been walking in \r\nfire. Why had he not known it? \r\n With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise \r\npsychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely \r\ninterested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words \r\nhad produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was \r\nsixteen, a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known \r\nbefore, he wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a \r\nsimilar experience. He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it \r\nhit the mark? How fascinating the lad was! \r\n Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that \r\nhad the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate, \r\ncomes only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence. \r\n \"Basil, I am tired of standing,\" cried Dorian Gray, suddenly. \"I \r\nmust go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here.\" \r\n \"My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can\'t think of \r\nanything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And \r\nI have caught the effect I wanted- the half-parted lips and the bright \r\nlook in the eyes. I don\'t know what Harry has been saying to you, \r\nbut he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. I \r\nsuppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn\'t believe a word \r\nthat he says.\" \r\n \"He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is \r\nthe reason that I don\'t believe anything he has told me.\" \r\n \"You know you believe it all,\" said Lord Henry, looking at him \r\nwith his dreamy, languorous eyes. \"I will go out to the garden with \r\nyou. It is horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something \r\niced to drink, something with strawberries in it.\" \r\n \"Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will \r\ntell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I \r\nwill join you later on. Don\'t keep Dorian too long. I have never \r\nbeen in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be \r\nmy masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands.\" \r\n Lord Henry went out to the garden, and found Dorian Gray burying his \r\nface in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their \r\nperfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him, and put his hand \r\nupon his shoulder. \"You are quite right to do that,\" he murmured. \r\n\"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure \r\nthe senses but the soul.\" \r\n The lad started and drew back. He was bare-headed, and the leaves \r\nhad tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded \r\nthreads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have \r\nwhen they are suddenly awakened. His finely-chiselled nostrils \r\nquivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left \r\nthem trembling. \r\n \"Yes,\" continued Lord Henry, \"that is one of the great secrets of \r\nlife- to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means \r\nof the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you \r\nthink you know, just as you know less than you want to know.\" \r\n Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help \r\nliking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His \r\nromantic olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. There \r\nwas something in his low, languid voice that was absolutely \r\nfascinating. His cool, white, flower-like hands, even, had a curious \r\ncharm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a \r\nlanguage of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being \r\nafraid. Why had it been left for a stranger to reveal him to \r\nhimself? He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship \r\nbetween them had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one \r\nacross his life who seemed to have disclosed to him life\'s mystery. \r\nAnd, yet, what was there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or \r\na girl. It was absurd to be frightened. \r\n \"Let us go and sit in the shade,\" said Lord Henry. \"Parker has \r\nbrought out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare you \r\nwill be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You \r\nreally must not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be \r\nunbecoming.\" \r\n \"What can it matter?\" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on \r\nthe seat at the end of the garden. \r\n \"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.\" \r\n \"Why?\" \r\n \"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one \r\nthing worth having.\" \r\n \"I don\'t feel that, Lord Henry.\" \r\n \"No, you don\'t feel it now. Some day, when you are old and \r\nwrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its \r\nlines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you \r\nwill feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you \r\ncharm the world. Will it always be so?... You have a wonderfully \r\nbeautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don\'t frown. You have. And Beauty is a \r\nform of Genius- is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no \r\nexplanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, \r\nor spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver \r\nshell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine \r\nright of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You \r\nsmile? Ah! when you have lost it you won\'t smile.... People say \r\nsometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at \r\nleast it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the \r\nwonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by \r\nappearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the \r\ninvisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But \r\nwhat the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years \r\nin which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, \r\nyour beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover \r\nthat there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself \r\nwith those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more \r\nbitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to \r\nsomething dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your \r\nlilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and \r\ndull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.... Ah! realize your youth while \r\nyou have it. Don\'t squander the gold of your days, listening to the \r\ntedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your \r\nlife to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly \r\naims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that \r\nis in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new \r\nsensations. Be afraid of nothing.... A new Hedonism- that is what \r\nour century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your \r\npersonality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to \r\nyou for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that you were quite \r\nunconscious of what you really are, of what you really might be. There \r\nwas so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you \r\nsomething about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were \r\nwasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will last- \r\nsuch a little time. The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom \r\nagain. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. In a \r\nmonth there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after \r\nyear the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. But \r\nwe never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at \r\ntwenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We \r\ndegenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions \r\nof which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that \r\nwe had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is \r\nabsolutely nothing in the world but youth!\" \r\n Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac \r\nfell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed \r\nround it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval \r\nstellated globe of its tiny blossoms. He watched it with that \r\nstrange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when \r\nthings of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some \r\nnew emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some \r\nthought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls \r\non us to yield. After a time the bee flew away. He saw it creeping \r\ninto the stained trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to \r\nquiver, and then swayed gently to and fro. \r\n Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio, and made \r\nstaccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each other, and \r\nsmiled. \r\n \"I am waiting,\" he cried. \"Do come in. The light is quite perfect, \r\nand you can bring your drinks.\" \r\n They rose up, and sauntered down the walk together. Two \r\ngreen-and-white butterflies fluttered past them, and in the \r\npear-tree at the corner of the garden a thrush began to sing. \r\n \"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord Henry, looking \r\nat him. \r\n \"Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?\" \r\n \"Always! that is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear \r\nit. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by \r\ntrying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The \r\nonly difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that \r\nthe caprice lasts a little longer.\" \r\n As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord \r\nHenry\'s arm. \"In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,\" he \r\nmurmured, flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the \r\nplatform and resumed his pose. \r\n Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched \r\nhim. The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound \r\nthat broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward \r\nstepped back to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting \r\nbeams that streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was \r\ngolden. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything. \r\n After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked \r\nfor a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the \r\npicture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes, and frowning. \r\n\"It is quite finished,\" he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote \r\nhis name in long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the \r\ncanvas. \r\n Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a \r\nwonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well. \r\n \"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,\" he said. \"It is \r\nthe finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at \r\nyourself.\" \r\n The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. \"Is it really \r\nfinished?\" he murmured, stepping down from the platform. \r\n \"Quite finished,\" said the painter. \"And you have sat splendidly \r\nto-day. I am awfully obliged to you.\" \r\n \"That is entirely due to me,\" broke in Lord Henry. \"Isn\'t it, Mr. \r\nGray?\" \r\n Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture \r\nand turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks \r\nflushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his \r\neyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood \r\nthere motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was \r\nspeaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The \r\nsense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never \r\nfelt it before. Basil Hallward\'s compliments had seemed to him to be \r\nmerely the charming exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to \r\nthem, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his \r\nnature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric \r\non youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at \r\nthe time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own \r\nloveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him. \r\nYes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizened, \r\nhis eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and \r\ndeformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold \r\nsteal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar \r\nhis body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth. \r\n As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like \r\na knife, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes \r\ndeepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He \r\nfelt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart. \r\n \"Don\'t you like it?\" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the \r\nlad\'s silence, not understanding what it meant. \r\n \"Of course he likes it,\" said Lord Henry. \"Who wouldn\'t like it? \r\nIt is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you \r\nanything you like to ask for it. I must have it.\" \r\n \"It is not my property, Harry.\" \r\n \"Whose property is it?\" \r\n \"Dorian\'s, of course,\" answered the painter. \r\n \"He is a very lucky fellow.\" \r\n \"How sad it is!\" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed \r\nupon his own portrait. \"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, \r\nand dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never \r\nbe older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the \r\nother way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture \r\nthat was to grow old! For that- for that- I would give everything! \r\nYes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would \r\ngive my soul for that!\" \r\n \"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,\" cried Lord \r\nHenry, laughing. \"It would be rather hard lines on your work.\" \r\n \"I should object very strongly, Harry,\" said Hallward. \r\n Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. \"I believe you would, Basil. \r\nYou like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a \r\ngreen bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.\" \r
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