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 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.”
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 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.”