l. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before
seven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to
him?"

"Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather
horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful
frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous
of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit
that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don't
want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good
advice."

Lord Henry smiled. "People are very fond of giving away what they need
most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity."

"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit
of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered
that."

"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his
work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his
prejudices, his principles, and his common sense. The only artists I
have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good
artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly
uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is
the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are
absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more
picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of
second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the
poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they
dare not realize."

"I wonder is that really so, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, putting some
perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that
stood on the table. "It must be, if you say it. And now I am off.
Imogen is waiting for me. Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye."

As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began
to think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as
Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused
him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by
it. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always
enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary
subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no
import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by
vivisecting others. Human life--that