all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends
where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode
of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one
sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something
horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.
How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But
then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age
of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as
a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your
mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose
picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that.
He is some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in
winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer
when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter
yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him."

"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course I am
not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to
look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth.
There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the
sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps
of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly
and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their
ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at
least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live,
undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin
upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth,
Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth;
Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods have
given us, suffer terribly."

"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across the
studio towards Basil Hallward.

"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you."

"But why not?"

"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their
names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to
love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life
mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one
only hides it. When I leave town no