. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Nature's test,
her sign of approval. When we are happy we are always good, but when we
are good we are not always happy."

"Ah! but what do you mean by good?" cried Basil Hallward.

"Yes," echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Lord
Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the
centre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?"

"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, touching
the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. "Discord
is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own life--that is
the important thing. As for the lives of one's neighbours, if one wishes
to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt one's moral views about them,
but they are not one's concern. Besides, Individualism has really the
higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's
age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of
his age is a form of the grossest immorality."

"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a
terrible price for doing so?" suggested the painter.

"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that
the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but
self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of
the rich."

"One has to pay in other ways but money."

"What sort of ways, Basil?"

"Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in... well, in the
consciousness of degradation."

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, mediaeval art is
charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One can use them in
fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction
are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, no
civilised man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilised man ever
knows what a pleasure is."

"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray. "It is to adore someone."

"That is certainly better than being adored," he answered, toying with
some fruits. "Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as
Humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us
to do something for them."

"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to
us," murmured the lad, gravely. "They create Love in our natures. They
have a right to demand it back."

"That is quite true, Dorian," cri