The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Gothic Chronicles Collection)

by Oscar Wilde

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name was Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.

“Ah! that is one of Harry’s views, isn’t it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harry’s views from his friends.

“Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian,” he said after a few puffs. “Why, Harry?” “Because they are so sentimental.” “But I like sentimental people.” “Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”

That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do everything that you say.”

She is a genius.” “My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”

But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love.

“My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect—simply a confession of failure.

“Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!” “It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,”

“Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.”

He shook his head. “To-night she is Imogen,” he answered, “and to-morrow night she will be Juliet.” “When is she Sibyl Vane?” “Never.”

How different he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward’s studio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and desire had come to meet it on the way.

though I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am,

He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.”

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad’s mad adoration of some one else caused him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by it. It made him a more interesting study.

He had made him premature. That was something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away.

With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end.

Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid.

All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.

The sky above was like a faded rose. He thought of his friend’s young fiery-coloured life and wondered how it was all going to end.

He opened it and found it was from Dorian Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane.

“I am only happy, Sibyl, when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr. Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money.” The girl looked up and pouted. “Money, Mother?” she cried, “what does money matter? Love is more than money.”

“We don’t want him any more, Mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now.”

This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no good.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

“Quite serious, Basil. I should be miserable if I thought I should ever be more serious than I am at the present moment.”

The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality.

I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study.”

You are much better than you pretend to be.” Lord Henry laughed. “The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves.

I have been right, Basil, haven’t I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare’s plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth.”

“I left her in the forest of Arden; I shall find her in an orchard in Verona.”

“Don’t, Harry. You have annoyed Dorian. He is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon any one. His nature is too fine for that.” Lord Henry looked across the table. “Dorian is never annoyed with me,”

When you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her would be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how any one can wish to shame the thing he loves.

What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at it for that. Ah! don’t mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take.

When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane’s hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.”

“Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories about pleasure. All your theories, in fact, Harry.”

“That is certainly better than being adored,” he answered, toying with some fruits. “Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them.” “I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to us,” murmured the lad gravely. “They create love in our natures. They have a right to demand it back.”

disagreeing with henry

“Harry, you are dreadful! I don’t know why I like you so much.” “You will always like me, Dorian,”

Basil, I can’t allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.

Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

loves theatrics

A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past. Life had come between them . .

When the cab drew up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.

The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal.

Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed. Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, there was nothing in her.

was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution.

she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.

“I wish she were ill,” he rejoined. “But she seems to me to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre actress.”

“Don’t talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than art.” “They are both simply forms of imitation,”

Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not good for one’s morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don’t suppose you will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating—people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don’t look so tragic! The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbec...