The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde
By Oscar Wilde
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Featuring the entirety of Oscar Wilde’s collected poetry, prose, and dramatic works, this collection demonstrates the author’s wide range, unerring wit, and unique perspective. Bringing together Wilde’s most famous works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Lady Windermere’s Fan, this anthology is an important resource for any fan or student of Oscar Wilde.
Often considered ahead of his time, Oscar Wilde’s works continue to resonate with modern readers and many have been adapted for film and television, including most recently, the 2009 film Dorian Gray starring Ben Barnes and the 2002 film The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Judi Dench and Colin Firth.
HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
Oscar Wilde
Born in Ireland in 1856, Oscar Wilde was a noted essayist, playwright, fairy tale writer and poet, as well as an early leader of the Aesthetic Movement. His plays include: An Ideal Husband, Salome, A Woman of No Importance, and Lady Windermere's Fan. Among his best known stories are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost.
Read more from Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Picture Of Dorian Gray Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde: Inspiring and Amazing Quotes from an Icon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Stories of All Time: Timeless Classics That Celebrate the Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDe Profundis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/550 Classic Love Poems You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/550 Beautiful Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Works of Oscar Wilde Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK ®: 10 Classic Shockers! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde
Related ebooks
The Short Stories Of Oscar Wilde: "I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moby Dick Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Bronte Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Franz Kafka - Collected Works Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Waste Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paradise Lost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Gatsby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems and Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comedies: Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance, and The Importance of Being Earnest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sorrows of Young Werther Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Franz Kafka: The Collection (A to Z Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frankenstein Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5METAMORPHOSIS (Wisehouse Classics Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crime and Punishment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad & The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Side of Paradise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Not Taken and other Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein: The Deluxe eBook Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don Quixote Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun and Her Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde
10 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5i love Wilde in all shapes and forms, but it's certainly his 'fairy stories' i like best.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Having skipped my senior year, I never had to read "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Frankly, I'm glad. I enjoyed it much more as a vain, aging 42-year old than I could possibly have as a 17-year old sure of my immortality. An excellent story -- one chapter got way too bogged down in the description of the finer things in life, but other than that, it was a fine piece of writing. The fables are wonderfully witty, biting social commentary thinly disguised as fairy tales. "The Remarkable Rocket" was wonderful in its treatment of idiotic society types. A lovely piece of work.The poetry, however, was far too bogged down in classical references to hold any attraction for me. His essays, particularly 'De Profundis,' were entirely too self-involved and self-congratulatory. His obvious sense of superiority, as well as his blind devotion to a self-involved idiot left me cold.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent a true master of literature!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oscar Wilde is one of my favorites. His works are witty and intense.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of my favorite writters. He's really an artist with the pen. His tales are one of a kind. The Rose and the Nightingale is just an example of these masterpieces.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's all here... all Oscar Wilde's classic plays, his shorter fiction and novels as well as writings such as "De Profundis" and his poetry.Truly the Oscar Wilde one-stop shop!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic example of the Victorian novel and one of those books that can effect the reader in a powerful and unique way. The idea of selling your soul to the devil, like Faust as related by Marlowe, Goethe and others is an image that intrigues. But there is in Wilde the focus on the purity of innocence (as seen in the passage quoted above) that is lost as one lives a life, whether filled with licentiousness or mere everyday experience. Wilde gives the story his own imprimatur with the artistic twist and thus adds to the evidence of his genius that includes the drama, stories, poetry and criticism that he created.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde, wordsmith extraordinaire, was the king of irony and wit. A testament to his genius is the fact that his works are timeless and can be applied and reread today as much as they were in his days. This anthology contains all his works and my most favorite one, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Actually, I must say that Dorian Gray is so powerful to me that it pervades most of my literary experience outside of Wilde, and I revert back to it many times a year.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This review of the works of Oscar Wilde will expand and the overall rating perhaps change, as I work my way through it. The Picture of Dorian GrayThis is a true classic, a chilling story of moral degradation, though the specifics of quite what he gets up to are mostly vague, reflecting the attitudes of the times towards describing dark aspects of human existence. The language is wonderful and even when you don't understand exactly what Lord Henry's incessant epigrams actually mean, you can appreciate the cleverness. A haunting and in places quite funny tale.The Canterville GhostA very funny story with a sad, tragic twist. The Happy PrinceAn achingly sad story that will have you in tears unless your heart is as leaden as the statue's.Nightingale and the RoseAnother bittersweet story.The Selfish GiantA classic morality tale, simply but effectively told.The Four Plays - Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being EarnestWilde's four main plays are all very funny and full of witty phrases and delicious quotes. To be savoured by anybody who appreciates good writing.Haven't tried the poems and essays at the end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'd recommend any or all of Wilde's works to anyone. Easy to read, very accessible, entertaining and hgihly amusing Wilde is, without a doubt, one of the best comedic dramatists of the 19th Century. His stories and poems, though less well known, are also enjoyable and well-written. Warning: The essays at the back can be slow going, but plow through. They're worth it. Another LT reviewer said that Wilde's non-fiction work is the work of a poser but I disagree. Wilde never claimed to agree with or even believe the things he wrote, indeed he came right out and said he didn't. People seemed to see this as just Wilde being wild and didn't take him seriously. I think that's a mistake. Wilde was able to formulate ideas and theories that he felt were beautiful or of value on some level but he didn't necsesarily agree with those ideas or theories. He wrote them down because he felt that they were things that needed to be said and not because he was trying to convince people to think how he thought.He loved contradictions and paradoxes. His primary aim was aestheticism and not sense. Read it, make up your own mind. But don't call Wilde a poser. If you do you're completely missing his point.
Book preview
The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde - Oscar Wilde
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF OSCAR WILDE
Oscar Wilde
HarperPerennial ClassicsCONTENTS
The Stories
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
The Canterville Ghost
The Sphinx Without a Secret
The Model Millionaire
The Young King
The Birthday of the Infanta
The Fisherman and His Soul
The Star-Child
The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Selfish Giant
The Devoted Friend
The Remarkable Rocket
The Portrait of Mr. W. H.
The Plays
The Importance of Being Earnest
Lady Windermere’s Fan
A Woman of No Importance
An Ideal Husband
Salomé
The Duchess of Padua
Vera, or the Nihilists
A Florentine Tragedy
La Sainte Courtisane, or the Woman Covered with Jewels
The Poems
Ye Shall Be Gods
Chorus of Cloud Maidens
From Spring Days to Winter
Requiescat
San Miniato
By the Arno
Rome Unvisited
La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente
Chanson
Untitled
Untitled
The Dole of the King’s Daughter
Love Song
Tristitiae
The True Knowledge
Heart’s Yearnings
The Little Ship
Θphnωiδia
Lotus Land
Désespoir
Lotus Leaves
Untitled
A Fragment From the Agamemnon of Aeschylos
A Vision
Sonnet On Approaching Italy
Sonnet
Impression De Voyage
The Theatre At Argos
Urbs Sacra Aeterna
The Grave of Keats
Sonnet
Easter Day
Sonnet
Italia
Vita Nuova
E Tenebris
Quantum Mutata
To Milton
Ave Maria Gratia Plena
Wasted Days
The Grave of Shelley
Santa Decca
Theoretikos
Amor Intellectualis
At Verona
Ravenna
Magdalen Walks
The Burden of Itys
Theocritus
Nocturne
Endymion
Charmides
Ballade De Marguerite
La Belle Gabrielle
Humanitad
Athanasia
The New Helen
Panthea
Phèdre
Queen Henrietta Maria
Louis Napoleon
Madonna Mia
Roses and Rue
Portia
Apologia
Quia Multum Amavi
Silentium Amoris
Her Voice
My Voice
Γλykyπikpoσ Epωσ
The Garden of Eros
Ave Imperatrix
Pan
The Artist’s Dream Or Sen Artysty
Libertatis Sacra Fames
Sonnet to Liberty
Taedium Vitae
Fabien Dei Franchi
Serenade
Camma
Impression Du Matin
In the Gold Room
Impressions
Impression
Hélas!
To V.F.
To M. B. J.
Impressions
Le Jardin Des Tuileries
The Harlot’S House
Fantaisies Décoratives
Under the Balcony
To My Wife
On the Sale By Auction of Keats’ Love Letters
The New Remorse
Canzonet
With a Copy of ‘A House of Pomegranates’
Symphony In Yellow
La Dame Jaune
Remorse
In the Forest
The Sphinx
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Poems In Prose
The Artist
The Doer of Good
The Disciple
The Master
The House of Judgment
The Teacher of Wisdom
Essays, Selected Journalism, Lectures and Letters
The House Beautiful
The Decorative Arts
Personal Impressions of America
Mrs Langtry As Hester Grazebrook
Woman’s Dress
Mr Whistler’s Ten O’Clock
Dinners and Dishes
Hamlet at the Lyceum
Olivia at the Lyceum
A Handbook to Marriage
Balzac in English
A Ride Through Morocco
The American Invasion
Two Biographies of Keats
Aristotle at Afternoon Tea
Mr Morris On Tapestry
London Models
De Profundis
Two Letters to the Daily Chronicle
The Decay of Lying
Pen, Pencil and Poison
The Critic As Artist
The Truth of Masks
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
The Rise of Historical Criticism
A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
About the Author
About the Series
Copyright
About the Publisher
The Stories
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
The Preface
The 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 into another 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 beautiful things 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 Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of 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 an unpardonable 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 of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
1
The studio was filled with the rich odour of 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 pinkflowering thorn.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-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 tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.
In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.
As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and, closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.
‘It is your best work, Basil, the best thing 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 been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. 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 laugh at him at Oxford. ‘No: I won’t send it anywhere.’
Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows, and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whirls 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 a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are 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 quite true, all the same.’
‘Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you – well, of course you have an intellectual expression, and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes 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 of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don’t flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him.’
‘You don’t understand me, Harry,’ answered the 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 and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at 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 – we shall 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 Basil Hall ward.
‘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 make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow 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 at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet – we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke’s – we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it – much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me.’
‘I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,’ said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. ‘I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.’
‘Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,’ cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden together, and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass white daisies were tremulous.
After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. ‘I am afraid I must be going, Basil,’ he murmured, ‘and before I go, I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago.’
‘What is that?’ said the painter, keeping his 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’t exhibit 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 much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish.’
‘Harry,’ said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, ‘every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is 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 an expression 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,’ he replied, gazing intently at the little golden white-feathered disk, ‘and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.’
The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilacblooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the 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 Basil Hall ward’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 Lady Brandon’s. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilised. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious Academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way round, and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some 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 my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least 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 on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store 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 the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.’
‘I don’t believe that, Harry, and I don’t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive – and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud – I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 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 but beauty,’ 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 people with 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 she took it into her head to lionise me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the 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 Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other.’
‘And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?’ asked his companion. ‘I know she goes in for giving a rapid précis of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent 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 most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells 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 a salon, 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 – poor dear 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 for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,’ said the young lord, plucking another 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 Lord Henry, tilting his hat back, and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. ‘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 appreciate me. 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 be merely an acquaintance.’
‘My dear old Basil, you are much more than an 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 the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathise with the rage of the English 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 one of us makes an ass of himself he is poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the Divorce Court, 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 you have said, and, what is more, Harry, I feel sure you don’t either.’
Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard, and 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 that observation. If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman – always a rash thing to do – he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don’t propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than principles, and I 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 anything but your art.’
‘He is all my art to me now,’ said the painter, gravely. ‘I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world’s history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinoüs was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian 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 dissatisfied with 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 the best work of my life. But in some curious way – I wonder will you understand me? – his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. A dream of form in days of thought:
– who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been 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 merely visible presence – ah! I wonder can you realise all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body – how much that is! 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 is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price, but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always 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 me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new 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 put into it some expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have 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 prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. 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 for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.’
‘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 if it 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 ever argue. 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 things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit 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 is no 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 want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man – that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and 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, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won’t like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, 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 alter you. 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 is that it leaves one so unromantic.’
‘Harry, don’t talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can’t feel what I feel. You change too often.’
‘Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.’ And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case, and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people’s emotions were! – much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One’s own soul, and the passions of one’s friends – those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his aunt he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor, and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, 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 seemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward, and said, ‘My dear fellow, 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 wonderful young man, who was going to help her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am bound to state that she never told me he 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 a beautiful nature. I at once pictured to myself a creature with 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, who stood blinking in the sunlight. ‘Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in 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 said of him. Don’t spoil him. Don’t try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Don’t take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses; my life as an artist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you.’ He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung 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.
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 volume of 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’t want a life-sized portrait of myself,’ answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool, in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush 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 old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything.’
‘You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting 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 am afraid, one of her victims also.’
‘I am in Lady Agatha’s black books at present,’ answered Dorian, with a funny look of penitence. ‘I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel with 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 about your not being there. The audience probably thought it was a duet. 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, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from 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 the divan and opened his cigarette-case.
The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord 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 I asked you to go away?’
Lord Henry smiled, and looked at Dorian Gray. ‘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 would have to talk seriously about it. But I certainly shall not run away, now that 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 are painting, 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 to oblige me,’ said Hallward, gazing intently at his picture. ‘It is quite true, I never talk when I am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious for my unfortunate 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 difficulty about 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 his friends, with the single exception of myself.’
Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom 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, ‘Have you 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’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realise one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, 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 basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion – these are the two things that govern us. And yet –’
‘Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,’ said the painter, deep in his work, and conscious only that a look had come into the lad’s face that he had never seen there before.
‘And yet,’ continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, ‘I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, 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 maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal – to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival 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 recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the 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 your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame –’
‘Stop!’ faltered Dorian Gray, ‘stop! You bewilder me. I don’t know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find 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 really from himself. The few words that Basil’s friend had said to him – words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in them – had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.
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 another chaos, 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 in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or 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 walking in fire. Why had he not known it?
With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely interested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his 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 a similar 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 marvellous bold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate, comes only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence.
‘Basil, I am tired of standing,’ cried Dorian 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 of anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And I have caught the effect I wanted – the half-parted lips, and the bright look in the eyes. I don’t know what Harry has been saying to you, 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 Lord Henry, 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 I will 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 found Dorian Gray burying his face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him, and put his hand upon his shoulder. ‘You are quite right to do that,’ he murmured. ‘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 bare-headed, and the leaves had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are suddenly awakened. His finely-chiselled nostrils quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.
‘Yes,’ continued Lord Henry, ‘that is one of the great secrets of life – to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.’
Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic olivecoloured face and worn expression interested him. There was something in his low, languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. His cool, white, flower-like hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life 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 if you stay any longer in this glare you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must not allow yourself to become 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 worth having.’
‘I don’t feel that, Lord Henry.’
‘No, you don’t feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips 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 no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the 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 only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible…Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly…Ah! realise 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 your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, 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 century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to you for a season…The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really might be. There was so much in you that charmed me that 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 your youth will last – such a little time. The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!’
Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated globe of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time the bee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to and fro.
Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of 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 fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of the garden a thrush began to sing.
‘You are glad to 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 life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.’
As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry’s arm. ‘In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,’ he murmured, flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and resumed his pose.
Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker armchair, and watched him. The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas 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 through the 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 Hallward stopped painting, looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the 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 corner of the canvas.
Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.
‘My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,’ 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 some dream. ‘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 Lord Henry. ‘Isn’t it, Mr. Gray?’
Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly 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 he had recognised 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 his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward’s compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggerations 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 terrible warning 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 the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.
As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.
‘Don’t you like it?’ cried Hallward at last, 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 modern art. I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it.’
‘It is not my property, Harry.’
‘Whose property is it?’
‘Dorian’s, of course,’ answered the painter.
‘He is a very lucky fellow.’
‘How sad it is!’ murmured Dorian Gray, with his 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