The Picture of Dorian Gray

d stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the he

d 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 Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek t

ersonal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sud

d across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his finger

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 pic

ing his head back in that odd way that used to make his fri

? 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 wor

ied, "but I really can't exhibit it. I

d himself out on th

ld; but it is quite

ellect 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 n

og 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 sho

asked Lord Henry, walking across

ame. I didn't inten

why

g 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 di

re 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 wi

e garden. "I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You

ung men went out into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade

I must be going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I ins

e painter, keeping his

ow quit

not, H

u to explain to me why you won't exhibit Dor

ou the re

because there was too much of your

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 co

ed. "And what is

ward; but an expression of p

asil," continued his com

swered the painter; "and I am afraid you will hardly

am quite sure I shall understand it," he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathe

the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past

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 indep

he same things, Basil. Conscience is t

n pride, for I used to be very proud-I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Br

beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the dai

de 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

ntleman 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

are hard on her, Harry!"

ucceeded in opening a restaurant. How could I admire he

forget what he does-afraid he-doesn't do anything-oh, yes, plays the piano-or is it the

riendship, and it is far the best ending for on

s, Harry," he murmured-"or what enmity is, for that matter. You

. "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

ut according to your category I

you are much more th

a friend. A sort of

My elder brother won't die, and my younger

laimed Hallw

e 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 a

at you have said, and, what is more,

t 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 wil

if I didn't see him every day. H

ght you would never care f

ot 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 realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of

traordinary! I mus

e 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 sugg

exhibit his portrait

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

now how useful passion is for publication. Nowa

hem. 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 o

ith you. It is only the intellectually lost who ev

l 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 givin

ly 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 hi

the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me.

llows. 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's, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would hav

red what

d the name of

sked Hallward, wi

an 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 h

glad you di

hy

ant you to

want me t

N

studio, sir," said the butl

e me now," cried L

the sunlight. "Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be

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

ry, smiling, and taking Hallward by the