u 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 a
question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which
thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy
yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour
in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once
loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten
poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music
that you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things
like these that our lives depend. Browning writes about that
somewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us. There are
moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I
have to live the strangest month of my life over again. I wish I could
change places with you, Dorian. The world has cried out against us
both, but it has always worshipped you. It always will worship you.
You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is
afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything,
never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything
outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to
music. Your days are your sonnets."

Dorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.
"Yes, life has been exquisite," he murmured, "but I am not going to
have the same life, Harry. And you must not say these extravagant
things to me. You don't know everything about me. I think that if you
did, even you would turn from me. You laugh. Don't laugh."

"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me the
nocturne over again. Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that
hangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, and if
you play she will come closer to the earth. You won't? Let us go to
the club, then. It has been a charming evening, and we must end it
charmingly. There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know
you--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son. He has already copied
your neckties, and has begged me to introdu