Портрет Дориана Грея / The Picture of Dorian Gray

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“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship,” said the young lord, picking another flower, “and it is the best ending for one.”

Hallward shook his head. “You don’t understand what friendship is, Harry. Everyone is the same to you.”

“That’s not true!”cried Lord Henry, pushing his hat back, and looking at the summer sky. “I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their beauty, my acquaintances for their good characters and my enemies for their intelligence.

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. Of course, I hate my relations. And I hate poor people because they are ugly, stupid and drunk—”

“I don’t agree with a single word you have said. And I feel sure that you don’t agree either.”

Lord Henry touched his pointed brown beard with his finger, and the toe of his boot with his stick. “How English you are, Basil! An Englishman is only interested in whether he agrees with an idea, not whether it is right or wrong.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. But tell me more about Mr Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?”

“Every day. I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t see him every day.”

“How extraordinary! I thought you only cared about your art.”

“He is all my art to me now,” said the painter. “I know that the work I have done since I met Dorian Gray, is the best work of my life.

He is much more to me than a model or a sitter. In some strange way his personality has shown me a new kind of art. He seems like a little boy – though he is really more than twenty – and when he is with me I see the world differently.”

“Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray.”

Hallward got up from his seat and walked up and down the garden. After some time he came back. “Harry,” he said, “Dorian Gray is the reason for my art. You might see nothing in him.

I see everything in him.”

“Then why won’t you exhibit his portrait?” asked Lord Henry.

“An artist should paint beautiful things, but he should put nothing of his own life into them. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry – too much of myself! Some day I will show the world what that beauty is. For that reason the world will never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.”

“I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won’t argue with you.