Quotes by Oscar Wilde

Grundy, that amusing old lady who represents the only original form of humour that the middle classes of this country have been able to produce. What I do object to most strongly is that you should have placarded the town with posters on which was printed in large letters:-- MR. OSCAR WILDE'S LATEST ADVERTISEMENT: A BAD CASE. Whether the expression 'A Bad Case' refers to my book or to the present position of the Government, I cannot tell. What was silly and unnecessary was the use of the term 'advertisement.' I think I may say without vanity--though I do not wish to appear to run vanity down--that of all men in England I am the one who requires least advertisement. I am tired to death of being advertised--I feel no thrill when I see my name in a paper. The chronicle does not interest me any more. I wrote this book entirely for my own pleasure, and it gave me very great pleasure to write it. Whether it becomes popular or not is a matter of absolute indifference to me. I am afraid, Sir, that the real advertisement is your cleverly written article. The English public, as a mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral, and your reclame will, I have no doubt, largely increase the sale of the magazine; in which sale I may mention with some regret, I have no pecuniary interest.--I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, OSCAR WILDE. 16 TITE STREET, CHELSEA, June 25. II. MR. OSCAR WILDE AGAIN (St. James's Gazette, June 27, 1890.) SIR,--In your issue of today you state that my brief letter published in your columns is the 'best reply' I can make to your article upon Dorian Gray. This is not so. I do not propose to discuss fully the matter here, but I feel bound to say that your article contains the most unjustifiable attack that has been made upon any man of letters for many years. The writer of it, who is quite incapable of concealing his personal malice, and so in some measure destroys the effect he wishes to produce, seems not to have the slightest idea of the temper in which a work of art should be approached. To say that such a book as mine should be 'chucked into the fire' is silly.

It is nearly eleven, and I want to go to bed early.” “Do stay. You have never played so well as to-night. There was something in your touch that was wonderful. It had more expression than I had ever heard from it before.” “It is because I am going to be good,” he answered, smiling. “I am a little changed already.” “You cannot change to me, Dorian,” said Lord Henry. “You and I will always be friends.” “Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It does harm.” “My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be going about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too delightful to do that. Besides, it is no use. You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. That is all. But we won’t discuss literature. Come round to-morrow. I am going to ride at eleven. We might go together, and I will take you to lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome. She is a charming woman, and wants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying. Mind you come. Or shall we lunch with our little duchess? She says she never sees you now. Perhaps you are tired of Gladys? I thought you would be. Her clever tongue gets on one’s nerves. Well, in any case, be here at eleven.” “Must I really come, Harry?” “Certainly. The park is quite lovely now. I don’t think there have been such lilacs since the year I met you.” “Very well. I shall be here at eleven,” said Dorian. “Good night, Harry.” As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he had something more to say. Then he sighed and went out. CHAPTER XX. It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and did not even put his silk scarf round his throat.

Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women nowadays behave to men who are not their husbands. LORD WINDERMERE. Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone. You don’t really know anything about her, and you’re always talking scandal against her. CECIL GRAHAM. [_Coming towards him L.C._] My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. _I_ only talk gossip. LORD WINDERMERE. What is the difference between scandal and gossip? CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I’m glad to say. LORD AUGUSTUS. Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments. CECIL GRAHAM. Sorry to hear it, Tuppy; whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong. LORD AUGUSTUS. My dear boy, when I was your age— CECIL GRAHAM. But you never were, Tuppy, and you never will be. [_Goes up C._] I say, Darlington, let us have some cards. You’ll play, Arthur, won’t you? LORD WINDERMERE. No, thanks, Cecil. DUMBY. [_With a sigh_.] Good heavens! how marriage ruins a man! It’s as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive. CECIL GRAHAM. You’ll play, of course, Tuppy? LORD AUGUSTUS. [_Pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table_.] Can’t, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again. CECIL GRAHAM. Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good. LORD DARLINGTON. [_Rising from R. table_, _where he has been writing letters_.

But it did, though—it was most unfortunate. [_Rises_.] And now, my dear child, I must go, as we are dining out. And mind you don’t take this little aberration of Windermere’s too much to heart. Just take him abroad, and he’ll come back to you all right. LADY WINDERMERE. Come back to me? [_C._] DUCHESS OF BERWICK. [_L.C._] Yes, dear, these wicked women get our husbands away from us, but they always come back, slightly damaged, of course. And don’t make scenes, men hate them! LADY WINDERMERE. It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell me all this. But I can’t believe that my husband is untrue to me. DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. [LADY WINDERMERE _rings bell_.] The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry? LADY WINDERMERE. You needn’t be afraid, Duchess, I never cry. DUCHESS OF BERWICK. That’s quite right, dear. Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. Agatha, darling! LADY AGATHA. [_Entering L._] Yes, mamma. [_Stands back of table L.C._] DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Come and bid good-bye to Lady Windermere, and thank her for your charming visit. [_Coming down again_.] And by the way, I must thank you for sending a card to Mr. Hopper—he’s that rich young Australian people are taking such notice of just at present. His father made a great fortune by selling some kind of food in circular tins—most palatable, I believe—I fancy it is the thing the servants always refuse to eat. But the son is quite interesting. I think he’s attracted by dear Agatha’s clever talk. Of course, we should be very sorry to lose her, but I think that a mother who doesn’t part with a daughter every season has no real affection. We’re coming to-night, dear. [PARKER _opens C. doors_.] And remember my advice, take the poor fellow out of town at once, it is the only thing to do. Good-bye, once more; come, Agatha. [_Exeunt_ DUCHESS _and_ LADY AGATHA _C.

His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls. Three o’clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had loved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the letter, he felt that he had been forgiven. Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry’s voice outside. “My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I can’t bear your shutting yourself up like this.” He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking still continued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was inevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture, and unlocked the door. “I am so sorry for it all, Dorian,” said Lord Henry as he entered. “But you must not think too much about it.” “Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?” asked the lad. “Yes, of course,” answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly pulling off his yellow gloves. “It is dreadful, from one point of view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see her, after the play was over?

by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist, and made things monstrous in their monotony of repetition, and contemptible in their conformity to rule, and destroyed throughout all France all those fine freedoms of expression that had made tradition new in beauty, and new modes one with antique form. But the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are. It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV. was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result. All the results of the mistakes of governments are quite admirable. It is to be noted also that Individualism does not come to man with any sickly cant about duty, which merely means doing what other people want because they want it; or any hideous cant about self-sacrifice, which is merely a survival of savage mutilation. In fact, it does not come to man with any claims upon him at all. It comes naturally and inevitably out of man. It is the point to which all development tends. It is the differentiation to which all organisms grow. It is the perfection that is inherent in every mode of life, and towards which every mode of life quickens. And so Individualism exercises no compulsion over man. On the contrary, it says to man that he should suffer no compulsion to be exercised over him. It does not try to force people to be good. It knows that people are good when they are let alone. Man will develop Individualism out of himself. Man is now so developing Individualism.

This interesting phenomenon, which always occurs after the appearance of a new edition of either of the books I have alluded to, is usually attributed to the influence of literature on the imagination. But this is a mistake. The imagination is essentially creative, and always seeks for a new form. The boy-burglar is simply the inevitable result of life’s imitative instinct. He is Fact, occupied as Fact usually is, with trying to reproduce Fiction, and what we see in him is repeated on an extended scale throughout the whole of life. Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterises modern thought, but Hamlet invented it. The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The Nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for what he does not believe in, is a purely literary product. He was invented by Tourgénieff, and completed by Dostoieffski. Robespierre came out of the pages of Rousseau as surely as the People’s Palace rose out of the _débris_ of a novel. Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac. Our Luciens de Rubempré, our Rastignacs, and De Marsays made their first appearance on the stage of the _Comédie Humaine_. We are merely carrying out, with footnotes and unnecessary additions, the whim or fancy or creative vision of a great novelist. I once asked a lady, who knew Thackeray intimately, whether he had had any model for Becky Sharp. She told me that Becky was an invention, but that the idea of the character had been partly suggested by a governess who lived in the neighbourhood of Kensington Square, and was the companion of a very selfish and rich old woman. I inquired what became of the governess, and she replied that, oddly enough, some years after the appearance of _Vanity Fair_, she ran away with the nephew of the lady with whom she was living, and for a short time made a great splash in society, quite in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s style, and entirely by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s methods. Ultimately she came to grief, disappeared to the Continent, and used to be occasionally seen at Monte Carlo and other gambling places.

” “Harry,” cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, “why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don’t think I am heartless. Do you?” “You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,” answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile. The lad frowned. “I don’t like that explanation, Harry,” he rejoined, “but I am glad you don’t think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded.” “It is an interesting question,” said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad’s unconscious egotism, “an extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored me—there have not been very many, but there have been some—have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences.

ILLINGWORTH. Fall in love with her, probably. MRS. ALLONBY. Then it is lucky you are not going to kiss her! LORD ILLINGWORTH. Is that a challenge? MRS. ALLONBY. It is an arrow shot into the air. LORD ILLINGWORTH. Don’t you know that I always succeed in whatever I try? MRS. ALLONBY. I am sorry to hear it. We women adore failures. They lean on us. LORD ILLINGWORTH. You worship successes. You cling to them. MRS. ALLONBY. We are the laurels to hide their baldness. LORD ILLINGWORTH. And they need you always, except at the moment of triumph. MRS. ALLONBY. They are uninteresting then. LORD ILLINGWORTH. How tantalising you are! [_A pause_.] MRS. ALLONBY. Lord Illingworth, there is one thing I shall always like you for. LORD ILLINGWORTH. Only one thing? And I have so many bad qualities. MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, don’t be too conceited about them. You may lose them as you grow old. LORD ILLINGWORTH. I never intend to grow old. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. MRS. ALLONBY. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy. LORD ILLINGWORTH. Its comedy also, sometimes. But what is the mysterious reason why you will always like me? MRS. ALLONBY. It is that you have never made love to me. LORD ILLINGWORTH. I have never done anything else. MRS. ALLONBY. Really? I have not noticed it. LORD ILLINGWORTH. How fortunate! It might have been a tragedy for both of us. MRS. ALLONBY. We should each have survived. LORD ILLINGWORTH. One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation. MRS. ALLONBY. Have you tried a good reputation? LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected. MRS. ALLONBY. It may come. LORD ILLINGWORTH. Why do you threaten me? MRS. ALLONBY. I will tell you when you have kissed the Puritan. [_Enter Footman_.] FRANCIS. Tea is served in the Yellow Drawing-room, my lord. LORD ILLINGWORTH.

The important thing, the thing that lies before me, the thing that I have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed, marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has been done to me, to make it part of me, to accept it without complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right. When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else--the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver--would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. For just as the body absorbs things of all kinds, things common and unclean no less than those that the priest or a vision has cleansed, and converts them into swiftness or strength, into the play of beautiful muscles and the moulding of fair flesh, into the curves and colours of the hair, the lips, the eye; so the soul in its turn has its nutritive functions also, and can transform into noble moods of thought and passions of high import what in itself is base, cruel and degrading; nay, more, may find in these its most august modes of assertion, and can often reveal itself most perfectly through what was intended to desecrate or destroy. The fact of my having been the common prisoner of a common gaol I must frankly accept, and, curious as it may seem, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, one might just as well never have been punished at all. Of course there are many things of which I was convicted that I had not done, but then there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and a still greater number of things in my life for which I was never indicted at all.

” She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her vague forget-me-not eyes. 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. “That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?” “Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagner’s music better than anybody’s. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don’t you think so, Mr. Gray?” The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife. Dorian smiled and shook his head: “I am afraid I don’t think so, Lady Henry. I never talk during music—at least, during good music. If one hears bad music, it is one’s duty to drown it in conversation.” “Ah! that is one of Harry’s views, isn’t it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harry’s views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of them. But you must not think I don’t like good music. I adore it, but I am afraid of it. It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped pianists—two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don’t know what it is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are, ain’t they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners after a time, don’t they? It is so clever of them, and such a compliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn’t it? You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I can’t afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make one’s rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in to look for you, to ask you something—I forget what it was—and I found Mr. Gray here. We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We have quite the same ideas.

Learn its utterance from Prince Hamlet and Queen Constance and you will find that mere expression is a mode of consolation and that form, which is the birth of passion, is also the death of pain. And so, to return to the sphere of art, it is form that creates not merely the critical temperament but also the æsthetic instinct that reveals to one all things under the condition of beauty. Start with the worship of form and there is no secret in art that will not be revealed to you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common-sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes. Lady Henry Wotton 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. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. With an evening coat and a white tie anybody, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilised. There is nothing so interesting as telling a good man or woman how bad one has been. It is intellectually fascinating. One of the greatest pleasures of having been wicked is that one has so much to say to the good. Laws are made in order that people in authority may not remember them, just as marriages are made in order that the divorce court may not play about idly. To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies. Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair. They are so sentimental. The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbours with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the high-wayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. I have the greatest contempt for optimism. Art begins with abstract decoration, with purely imaginative and pleasureable work dealing with what is unreal and non-existent.

Besides, they are both of them merely poses. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You prefer to be natural? MRS. CHEVELEY. Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What would those modern psychological novelists, of whom we hear so much, say to such a theory as that? MRS. CHEVELEY. Ah! the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women . . . merely adored. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women? MRS. CHEVELEY. Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And women represent the irrational. MRS. CHEVELEY. Well-dressed women do. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_With a polite bow_.] I fear I could hardly agree with you there. But do sit down. And now tell me, what makes you leave your brilliant Vienna for our gloomy London—or perhaps the question is indiscreet? MRS. CHEVELEY. Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Well, at any rate, may I know if it is politics or pleasure? MRS. CHEVELEY. Politics are my only pleasure. You see nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more . . . becoming! SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. A political life is a noble career! MRS. CHEVELEY. Sometimes. And sometimes it is a clever game, Sir Robert. And sometimes it is a great nuisance. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Which do you find it? MRS. CHEVELEY. I? A combination of all three. [_Drops her fan_.] SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Picks up fan_.] Allow me! MRS. CHEVELEY. Thanks. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But you have not told me yet what makes you honour London so suddenly.

“But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,” continued Lady Agatha. “I can sympathize with everything except suffering,” said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. “I cannot sympathize with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores, the better.” “Still, the East End is a very important problem,” remarked Sir Thomas with a grave shake of the head. “Quite so,” answered the young lord. “It is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.” The politician looked at him keenly. “What change do you propose, then?” he asked. Lord Henry laughed. “I don’t desire to change anything in England except the weather,” he answered. “I am quite content with philosophic contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.” “But we have such grave responsibilities,” ventured Mrs. Vandeleur timidly. “Terribly grave,” echoed Lady Agatha. Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. “Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world’s original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different.” “You are really very comforting,” warbled the duchess. “I have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to look her in the face without a blush.” “A blush is very becoming, Duchess,” remarked Lord Henry. “Only when one is young,” she answered. “When an old woman like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell me how to become young again.” He thought for a moment. “Can you remember any great error that you committed in your early days, Duchess?” he asked, looking at her across the table.

It proposes to do away with poverty and the suffering that it entails. It desires to get rid of pain, and the suffering that pain entails. It trusts to Socialism and to Science as its methods. What it aims at is an Individualism expressing itself through joy. This Individualism will be larger, fuller, lovelier than any Individualism has ever been. Pain is not the ultimate mode of perfection. It is merely provisional and a protest. It has reference to wrong, unhealthy, unjust surroundings. When the wrong, and the disease, and the injustice are removed, it will have no further place. It will have done its work. It was a great work, but it is almost over. Its sphere lessens every day. Nor will man miss it. For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment. The new Individualism, for whose service Socialism, whether it wills it or not, is working, will be perfect harmony. It will be what the Greeks sought for, but could not, except in Thought, realise completely, because they had slaves, and fed them; it will be what the Renaissance sought for, but could not realise completely except in Art, because they had slaves, and starved them. It will be complete, and through it each man will attain to his perfection. The new Individualism is the new Hellenism. * * * * * _Reprinted from the_ ‘_Fortnightly Review_,’ _by permission of Messrs Chapman and Hall_. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOUL OF MAN UNDER SOCIALISM *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!

In defending myself against Mrs. Cheveley, I have a right to use any weapon I can find, have I not? LORD GORING. [_Still looking in the glass_.] In your place I don’t think I should have the smallest scruple in doing so. She is thoroughly well able to take care of herself. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Sits down at the table and takes a pen in his hand_.] Well, I shall send a cipher telegram to the Embassy at Vienna, to inquire if there is anything known against her. There may be some secret scandal she might be afraid of. LORD GORING. [_Settling his buttonhole_.] Oh, I should fancy Mrs. Cheveley is one of those very modern women of our time who find a new scandal as becoming as a new bonnet, and air them both in the Park every afternoon at five-thirty. I am sure she adores scandals, and that the sorrow of her life at present is that she can’t manage to have enough of them. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Writing_.] Why do you say that? LORD GORING. [_Turning round_.] Well, she wore far too much rouge last night, and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Striking a bell_.] But it is worth while my wiring to Vienna, is it not? LORD GORING. It is always worth while asking a question, though it is not always worth while answering one. [_Enter_ MASON.] SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Is Mr. Trafford in his room? MASON. Yes, Sir Robert. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Puts what he has written into an envelope_, _which he then carefully closes_.] Tell him to have this sent off in cipher at once. There must not be a moment’s delay. MASON. Yes, Sir Robert. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Oh! just give that back to me again. [_Writes something on the envelope_. MASON _then goes out with the letter_.] SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. She must have had some curious hold over Baron Arnheim. I wonder what it was. LORD GORING. [_Smiling_.] I wonder. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I will fight her to the death, as long as my wife knows nothing. LORD GORING. [_Strongly_.] Oh, fight in any case—in any case. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.

_One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life_, _makes it indeed_, _and so masters it_. _He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought_.] LORD GORING. Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps? PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [_Takes his hat_, _cane_, _and cape_, _and presents new buttonhole on salver_.] LORD GORING. Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. I have observed that. LORD GORING. [_Taking out old buttonhole_.] You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. [_Putting in a new buttonhole_.] And falsehoods the truths of other people. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, Phipps. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. LORD GORING. [_Looking at himself in the glass_.] Don’t think I quite like this buttonhole, Phipps. Makes me look a little too old. Makes me almost in the prime of life, eh, Phipps? PHIPPS. I don’t observe any alteration in your lordship’s appearance. LORD GORING. You don’t, Phipps? PHIPPS. No, my lord. LORD GORING. I am not quite sure. For the future a more trivial buttonhole, Phipps, on Thursday evenings. PHIPPS. I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality your lordship complains of in the buttonhole. LORD GORING. Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England—they are always losing their relations. PHIPPS. Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect. LORD GORING. [_Turns round and looks at him_. PHIPPS _remains impassive_.] Hum! Any letters, Phipps? PHIPPS. Three, my lord. [_Hands letters on a salver_.

” “Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,” said Hallward, gazing intently at his picture. “It is quite true, I never talk when I am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay.” “But what about my man at the Orleans?” The painter laughed. “I don’t think there will be any difficulty about that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform, and don’t move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry says. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single exception of myself.” Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few moments he said to him, “Have you really a very bad influence, Lord Henry? As bad as Basil says?” “There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral—immoral from the scientific point of view.” “Why?” “Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet—” “Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,” said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look had come into the lad’s face that he had never seen there before. “And yet,” continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, “I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediævalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be.

” “Is it true, Mr. Gray?” “She assures me so, Lady Narborough,” said Dorian. “I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn’t, because none of them had had any hearts at all.” “Four husbands! Upon my word that is _trop de zêle_.” “_Trop d’audace_, I tell her,” said Dorian. “Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don’t know him.” “The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,” said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. “Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.” “But what world says that?” asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. “It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.” “Everybody I know says you are very wicked,” cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. “It is perfectly monstrous,” he said, at last, “the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.” “Isn’t he incorrigible?” cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. “I hope so,” said his hostess, laughing. “But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion.” “You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,” broke in Lord Henry. “You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.” “Narborough wasn’t perfect,” cried the old lady. “If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,” was the rejoinder. “Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true.” “Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married.

Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and said, with a heavy sigh, “It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen.” “What is?” asked Lord Henry. “Oh! this accident, I suppose. My dear fellow, it can’t be helped. It was the man’s own fault. Why did he get in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot. And Geoffrey is not; he shoots very straight. But there is no use talking about the matter.” Dorian shook his head. “It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if something horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself, perhaps,” he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of pain. The elder man laughed. “The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. But we are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering about this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the subject is to be tabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have everything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would not be delighted to change places with you.” “There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. Don’t laugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched peasant who has just died is better off than I am. I have no terror of death. It is the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don’t you see a man moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?” Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand was pointing. “Yes,” he said, smiling, “I see the gardener waiting for you. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on the table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You must come and see my doctor, when we get back to town.” Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching.