ut
cause, give utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to that mad
prayer which had so changed his life? Here in gold embroidered red
doublet, jewelled sur-coat, and gilt edged ruff and wrist-bands,
stood Sir Anthony Sherard, with his silver and black armour piled
at his feet. What had this man's legacy been? Had the lover of
Giovanni of Naples bequeathed him some inheritance of sins and
shame? Were his own actions merely the dreams that the dead man had
not dared to realise? Here, from the fading canvas smiled Lady
Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearled stomacher, and pink
slashed sleeves. A flower was in her right hand, and her left
clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses. On a table
by her side lay a mandolin and an apple. There were large green
rosettes upon her little pointed shoes. He knew her life, and the
strange stories that were told about her lovers. Had he something
of her temperament in him? Those oval heavy-lidded eyes seemed to
look curiously at him. What of George Willoughby, with his powdered
hair and fantastic patches? How evil he looked! The face was
saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted
with disdain. Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands
that were so overladen with rings. He had been a macaroni of the
eighteenth century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.
What of the second Lord Sherard, the companion of the Prince Regent
in his wildest days, and one of the witnesses of the secret
marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert? How proud and handsome he was, with
his chestnut curls and insolent pose! What passions had he
bequeathed? The world had looked upon him as infamous. He had led
the orgies at Carlton House. The Star of the Garter glittered upon
his breast. Beside him hung the portrait of his wife, a pallid,
thin-lipped woman in black. Her blood also stirred within him. How
curious it all seemed!"[24]

What a pity Dorian did not see that the sole reason for a plurality of
lives was that very thirst of the animal soul for the sensual pleasures
of the material life in which he so wildly indulged, and yet with a
diabolical, smooth, and easy method in his madness, seeking ever the
externally beautiful. Beauty fled indeed before the gaunt ugliness of
crime; but when this happened to Dorian, he