r 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 mediaevalism, and return to the
Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it
may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The
mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial
that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse
that