dorian gray

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lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the
younger than I am, I must admit that I delight in it. Perhaps
poetry that they dare not realize.”
you had better write to him. I don’t want to see him alone. He
“I wonder is that really so, Harry?” said Dorian Gray, put-
says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.”
ting some perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-
Lord Henry smiled. “People are very fond of giving away
topped bottle that stood on the table. “It must be, if you say
what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth
it. And now I am off. Imogen is waiting for me. Don’t forget
of generosity.”
about to-morrow. Good-bye.”
“Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be
As he left the room, Lord Henry’s heavy eyelids drooped,
just a bit of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I
and he began to think. Certainly few people had ever inter-
have discovered that.”
ested him so much as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad’s mad
“Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in
adoration of some one else caused him not the slightest pang
him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing
of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by it. It made him
left for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his com-
a more interesting study. He had been always enthralled by
mon sense. The only artists I have ever known who are per-
the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-
sonally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in
matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no
what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninterest-
import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he
52
Oscar Wilde
had ended by vivisecting others. Human life—that appeared
ance, that Dorian Gray’s soul had turned to this white girl
to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it
and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad
there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one
was his own creation. He had made him premature. That
watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one
was something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to
could not wear over one’s face a mask of glass, nor keep the
them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of
sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the
life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes
imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen
this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature,
dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their prop-
which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.
erties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so
But now and then a complex personality took the place and
strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to
assumed the office of art, was indeed, in its way, a real work
understand their nature. And, yet, what a great reward one
of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces, just as poetry
received! How wonderful the whole world became to one!
has, or sculpture, or painting.
To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional
Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest
coloured life of the intellect—to observe where they met,
while it was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were
and where they separated, at what point they were in uni-
in him, but he was becoming self-conscious. It was delight-
son, and at what point they were at discord—there was a
ful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his beautiful
delight in that! What matter what the cost was? One could
soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all
never pay too high a price for any sensation.
ended, or was destined to end. He was like one of those gra-
He was conscious—and the thought brought a gleam of
cious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be
pleasure into his brown agate eyes—that it was through cer-
remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one’s sense of beauty,
tain words of his, musical words said with musical utter-
and whose wounds are like red roses.
53
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Soul and body, body and soul—how mysterious they were!
cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was
There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its mo-
that our future would be the same as our past, and that the
ments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the intel-
sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many
lect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly impulse
times, and with joy.
ceased, or the psychical impulse began? How shallow were
It was clear to him that the experimental method was the
the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! And yet
only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analy-
how difficult to decide between the claims of the various
sis of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject
schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin?
made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful
Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno
results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psycho-
thought? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery,
logical phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt
and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also.
that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the de-
He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychol-
sire for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a
ogy so absolute a science that each little spring of life would [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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