is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. I am sorry if I hurt your
vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true. Crime belongs
exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest
degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply
a method of procuring extraordinary sensations."

"A method of procuring sensations? Do you think, then, that a man who
has once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again?
Don't tell me that."

"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often," cried Lord
Henry, laughing. "That is one of the most important secrets of life. I
should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should never
do any thing that one cannot talk about after dinner. But let us pass
from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had come to such a
really romantic end as you suggest; but I can't. I dare say he fell into
the Seine off an omnibus, and that the conductor hushed up the scandal.
Yes: I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now on his back
under those dull-green waters with the heavy barges floating over him,
and long weeds catching in his hair. Do you know, I don't think he would
have done much more good work. During the last ten years his painting
had gone off very much."

Dorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began
to stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large grey-plumaged bird,
with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo perch.
As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf of
crinkled lids over black glass-like eyes, and began to sway backwards
and forwards.

"Yes," he continued, turning round, and taking his handkerchief out of
his pocket; "his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have
lost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be great
friends, he ceased to be a great artist. What was it separated you? I
suppose he bored you. If so, he never forgave you. It's a habit bores
have. By the way, what has become of that wonderful portrait he did of
you? I don't think I have ever seen it since he finished it. Oh! I
remember your telling me years ago that you had sent it down to Selby,
and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the way. You never got it back?
What a pity! It was really a masterpiece. I remember I wanted to buy it.
I wish I had now. It belonged to Basil's best period. Since then, his
work was that curious