ost refined in modern
civilization,--a charming, gentle, witty, euphemistic Mephistopheles,
who deprecates the vulgarity of goodness, and muses aloud about "those
renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, and those natural
rebellions that wise men still call sin." Upon the whole, Lord Harry is
the most ably portrayed character in the book, though not the most
original in conception. Dorian Gray himself is as nearly a new idea in
fiction as one has now-a-days a right to expect. If he had been
adequately realized and worked out, Mr. Wilde's first novel would have
been remembered after more meritorious ones were forgotten. But, even as
"nemo repente fuit turpissimus," so no one, or hardly any one, creates a
thoroughly original figure at a first essay. Dorian never quite
solidifies. In fact, his portrait is rather the more real thing of the
two. But this needs explanation.

The story consists of a strong and marvellous central idea, illustrated
by three characters, all men. There are a few women in the background,
but they are only mentioned: they never appear to speak for themselves.
There is, too, a valet who brings in his master's breakfasts, and a
chemist who by some scientific miracle, disposes of a human body: but,
substantially, the book is taken up with the artist who paints the
portrait, with his friend Lord Harry aforesaid, and with Dorian Gray,
who might, so far as the story goes, stand alone. He and his portrait
are one, and their union points the moral of the tale.

The situation is as follows. Dorian Gray is a youth of extraordinary
physical beauty and grace, and pure and innocent of soul. An artist sees
him and falls aesthetically in love with him, and finds in him a new
inspiration in his art, both direct and general. In the lines of his
form and features, and in his colouring and movement, are revealed fresh
and profound laws: he paints him in all guises and combinations, and it
is seen and admitted on all sides that he has never before painted so
well. At length he concentrates all his knowledge and power in a final
portrait, which has the vividness and grace of life itself, and,
considering how much both of the sitter and of the painter is embodied
in it, might almost be said to live. The portrait is declared by Lord
Harry to be the greatest work of modern art; and he himself thinks so
well of it that he resolves never to exhibit it, even as he would shrink
from exposing to public gaze the priv