in an
age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of
autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I
will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall
never see my portrait of Dorian Gray."

"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only
the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very
fond of you?"

The painter considered for a few moments. "He likes me," he answered,
after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully.
I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be
sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in
the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is
horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me
pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to
someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit
of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day."

"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry.
"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think
of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That
accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate
ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something
that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the
silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man--that
is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is
a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust,
with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire
first, all the same. Some day you will look at your friend, and he will
seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of
colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart,
and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time
he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great
pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a
romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of
any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic."

"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of
Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change too
often."

"Ah, my dear Basil, that i