-Henry Wotton
-Dorian Gray
You really
must not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be unbecoming.’
‘What can it matter?’ cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down
on the seat at the end of the garden.
‘It should matter everything to you, Mr Gray.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one
thing worth having.’
‘I don’t feel that, Lord Henry.’
‘No, you don’t feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled
and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and
passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you
will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will
it always be so? . . . You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr Gray.
Don’t frown. You have. And Beauty is a form of Genius – is higher,
indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts
of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark
waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned.
It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who
have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won’t smile. . . .
People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so.
But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the
wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by
appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the
invisible. . . . Yes, Mr Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what
the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in
which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your
beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there
are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself with those
mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter
than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something
dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your
roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.
You will suffer horribly. . . . Ah! realize your youth while you have it.
Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying
to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant,
the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals,
of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be
lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of
nothing. . . . A new Hedonism – that is what our century wants. You
might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you
could not do. The world belongs to you for a season. . . .The moment
I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really
are, of what you really might be. There was so much in you that
charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I
thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a
little time that your youth will last – such a little time. The common
hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as
yellow next June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on
the clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will hold
its purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that
beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot.
We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of
the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite
temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth!
There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!’
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" (novel, 1891)
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