mixture of bad painting and good intentions that
always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist. Did
you advertise for it? You should."

"I forget," said Dorian. "I suppose I did. But I never really liked it.
I am sorry I sat for it. The memory of the thing is hateful to me. Why
do you talk of it? It used to remind me of those curious lines in some
play--'Hamlet,' I think--how do they run?--

"'Like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart.'

Yes: that is what it was like."

Lord Henry laughed. "If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his
heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.

Dorian Gray shook his head, and struck some soft chords on the piano.
"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'" he repeated, "'a face without a
heart.'"

The elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes. "By the
way, Dorian," he said, after a pause, "'what does it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose'--how does the quotation run?--'his own
soul'?"

The music jarred and Dorian Gray started, and stared at his friend. "Why
do you ask me that, Harry?"

"My dear fellow," said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,
"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.
That is all. I was going through the Park last Sunday, and close by the
Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people
listening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the
man yelling out that question to his audience. It struck me as being
rather dramatic. London is very rich in curious effects of that kind. A
wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly white
faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful phrase
flung into the air by shrill, hysterical lips--it was really very good
in its way, quite a suggestion. I thought of telling the prophet that
Art had a soul, but that man had not. I am afraid, however, he would not
have understood me."

"Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and
sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a
soul in each one of us. I know it."

"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?"

"Quite sure."

"Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely
certain about are never true. That is the fatality of Faith, and the
lesson of Romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have
you or I to do with