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“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 young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”
When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.”
I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after all—though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn’t really want it, and I really do.”
“You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.” “Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the one in the picture?” “Before either.”
“Money, I suppose,” said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. “Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.”
“Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense.
“It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.” “I’ll back English women against the world, Harry,” said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist.
Lord Henry shook his head. “American girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past,” he said, rising to go.
“I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor’s sake. I am told that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics.”
There was something fascinating in this son of love and death.
“Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?” asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. “American novels,” answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.
“When America was discovered,” said the Radical member—and he began to give some wearisome facts.
“I wish to goodness it never had been discovered at all!” she exclaimed.
As an American, I agree.
The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are absolutely reasonable.
SINCE WHEN????
Soul and body, body and soul—how mysterious they were! There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.
As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value.
Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.
