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 whorls
from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? My dear
fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You
do anything in the world to gain 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 Hallward.

"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


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