the superstitions of our age? No: we have given up
our belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian,
and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept your youth.
You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than you are, and I
am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really wonderful, Dorian. You
have never looked more charming than you do to-night. You remind me of
the day I saw you first. You were rather cheeky, very shy, and
absolutely extraordinary. You have changed, of course, but not in
appearance. I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth I
would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or
be respectable. Youth! There is nothing like it. It's absurd to talk of
the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now
with any respect are people much younger than myself. They seem in front
of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I
always contradict the aged. I do it on principle. If you ask them their
opinion on something that happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the
opinions current in 1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in
everything, and knew absolutely nothing. How lovely that thing you are
playing is! I wonder did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea
weeping round the villa, and the salt spray dashing against the panes?
It is marvellously romantic. What a blessing it is that there is one art
left to us that is not imitative! Don't stop. I want music to-night. It
seems to me that you are the young Apollo, and that I am Marsyas
listening to you. I have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know
nothing of. The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one
is young. I am amazed sometimes at my own sincerity. Ah, Dorian, how
happy you are! What an exquisite life you have had! You have drunk
deeply of everything. You have crushed the grapes against your palate.
Nothing has been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more
than the sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same."

"I am not the same, Harry."

"Yes: you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be.
Don't spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type.
Don't make yourself incomplete. You are quite flawless now. You need not
shake your head: you know you are. Besides, Dorian, don't deceive
yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is