Chapter 3At half-past twelve day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called selfish because it derived no particur be from him, but who was sidered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him. His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabel was young and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic servi a caprioment of annoyan not being offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he sidered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolehe good English of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his fathers secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months ter to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. He had twe town houses, but preferred thttps:// live in chambers as it was less trouble, and took most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention to the ma of his collieries in the Midnd ties, exg himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decy of burning wood on his owh. In politics he was a Tory, except wheories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to most of his retions, whom he bullied in turn. Only Engnd could have produced him, and he always said that the try was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.When Lord Heered the room, he found his uting in a rough shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over The Times. "Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five.""Pure family affe, I assure you, Uncle Gee. I want to get something out of you.""Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. "Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagihat money is everything.""Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I dont want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle Gee, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoors tradesmen, and sequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information.""Well, I tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.""Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle Gee," said Lord Henry nguidly."Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows."That is what I have e to learn, Uncle Gee. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the st Lord Kelsos grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereaux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very muterested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him.""Kelsos grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelsos grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was araordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow-- a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a fiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-w in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him-- and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alo the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had fotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he must be a good-looking chap.""He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry."I hope he will fall into proper hands," tihe old man. "He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had mooo. All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queeo ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didnt dare show my face at Court for a month. I hope he treated his grandsoer than he did the jarvies.""I dont know," answered Lord Henry. "I fancy that the boy will be well off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so. And . . . his mother was very beautiful?""Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, Harry. What oh induced her to behave as she did, I never could uand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was mad after her. She was romantic, though. All the women of that family were. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful. Carlingto on his ko her. Told me so himself. She ughed at him, and there wasnt a girl in London at the time who wasnt after him. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an Ameri? Aint English girls good enough for him?""It is rather fashioo marry Ameris just now, Uncle Gee.""Ill baglish women against the world, Harry," said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist."The betting is on the Ameris.""They dont st, I am told," muttered his uncle."A long e exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. They take things flying. I dont think Dartmoor has a ce.""Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?"Lord Henry shook his head. "Ameri girls are as clever at cealing their parents, as English wome cealing their past," he said, rising to go."They are pork-packers, I suppose?""I hope so, Uncle Gee, for Dartmoors sake. I am told that pork-pag is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics.""Is she pretty?""She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most Ameri women do. It is the secret of their charm.""Why t these Ameri women stay in their own try? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.""It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it," said Lord Henry. "Good-bye, Uncle Gee. I shall be te for lunch, if I stop any lohanks fivihe information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.""Where are you lung, Harry?""At Aunt Agathas. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her test protégée.""Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with her charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman thinks that I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads.""All right, Uncle Gee, Ill tell her, but it wont have any effect. Phinthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic."The old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his servant. Lord Henry passed up the low arcade intton Street and turned his steps in the dire of Berkeley Square.So that was the story of Dorian Grays parentage. Crudely as it had been told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a strange, almost modern romance. A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes; it was an iing background. It posed the d, made him more perfect, as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the mea flht blow. . . . And how charming he had been at dihe night before, as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat opposite to him at the club, the red dleshades staining to a richer rose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking to him was like pying upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every toud thrill of the bow. . . . There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influeno other activity was like it. To projees soul into some gracious form, a tarry there for a moment; to hear ones own intellectual views echoed back to oh all the added music of passion and youth; to vey oemperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly al in its pleasures, and grossly on in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this d, whom by so curious a ce he had met in Basils studio, or could be fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, ay such as old Greek marbles kept for us. There was nothing that one could not do with him. He could be made a Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was destio fade! . . . And Basil? From a psychological point of view, how iing he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking at life, suggested sely by the merely visible presence of one who was unscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodnd, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her there had been wakehat wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things being, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfe whose shadow they made real: how stra all was! He remembered something like it in history. Was it not Pto, that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it? Was it not Buonarotti who had carved it in the coloured marbles of a so-sequence? But in our owury it was strange. . . . Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the d was to the painter who had fashiohe wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him--had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fasating in this son of love ah.Suddenly he stopped and gnced up at the houses. He found that he had passed his aunts some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. Wheered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stid passed into the dining-room."Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.He ied a facile excuse, and having taken the vat seat o her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed to him shyly from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, a dy of admirable good-nature and good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample architectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are described by porary historians as stoutness. o her sat, on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who followed his leader in public life and in private life followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in accordah a wise and well-known rule. The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of siderable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he expined oo Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, one of his aunts oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book. Fortunately for him she had oher side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement in the House of ons, with whom she was versing in that intensely ear manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, that all really good people fall into, and from whione of them ever quite escape."We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry," cried the duchess, nodding pleasantly to him across the table. "Do you think he will really marry this fasating young person?""I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess.""How dreadful!" excimed Lady Agatha. "Really, some one should interfere.""I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an Ameri dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious."My uncle has already suggested pork-pag Sir Thomas."&quoods! What are Ameri dry-goods?" asked the duchess, raising her rge hands in wonder and atuating the verb."Ameriovels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.The duchess looked puzzled."Dont mind him, my dear," whispered Lady Agatha. "He never means anything that he says.""When America was discovered," said the Radical member-- and he began to give some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. The duchess sighed and exercised her privilege of interruption. "I wish to goodness it never had been discovered at all!" she excimed. "Really, irls have no owadays. It is most unfair.""Perhaps, after all, Ameriever has been discovered," said Mr. Erskine; "I myself would say that it had merely beeed.""Oh! but I have seen spes of the inhabitants," answered the duchess vaguely. "I must fess that most of them are extremely pretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in Paris. I wish I could afford to do the same.""They say that when good Ameris die they go to Paris," chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a rge wardrobe of Humours cast-off clothes."Really! And where do bad Ameris go to when they die?" inquired the duchess."They go to America," murmured Lord Henry.Sir Thomas frowned. "I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced against that great try," he said to Lady Agatha. "I have travelled all over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters, are extremely civil. I assure you that it is an education to visit it.""But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?" asked Mr. Erskine pintively. "I dont feel up to the journey."Sir Thomas waved his hand. "Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about them. The Ameris are aremely iing people. They are absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I assure you there is no nonsense about the Ameris.""How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.""I do not uand you," said Sir Thomas, growing rather red."I do, Lord Henry," murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile."Paradoxes are all very well in their way... ." rejoihe baro."Was that a paradox?" asked Mr. Erskine. "I did not think so. Perhaps it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it oight rope. When the verities bee acrobats, we judge them.""Dear me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue! I am sure I never make out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite vexed with you. Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up the East End? I assure you he would be quite invaluable. They would love his pying.""I want him to py to me," cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked dowable and caught a bright answering gnce."But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," tinued Lady Agatha."I sympathize with everything except suffering," said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. "I ot sympathize with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about lifes sores, the better.""Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir Thomas with a grave shake of the head."Quite so," answered the young lord. "It is the problem of svery, ary to solve it by amusing the sves."The politi looked at him keenly. "What ge do you propose, then?" he asked.Lord Henry ughed. "I dont desire to ge anything in Engnd except the weather," he answered. "I am quite tent with philosophiption. But, as the eenth tury has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to sce to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of sce is that it is ional.""But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vaimidly."Terribly grave," echoed Lady Agatha.Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the worlds inal sin. If the caveman had known how to ugh, history would have been different.""You are really very f," warbled the duchess. "I have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no i at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to look her in the face without a blush.""A blush is very being, Duchess," remarked Lord Henry."Only when one is young," she answered. "When an old woman like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell me how to bee young again."He thought for a moment. " you remember any great error that you itted in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across the table."A great many, I fear," she cried."Then it them ain," he said gravely. "To get baes youth, one has merely to repeat ones follies.""A delightful theory!" she excimed. "I must put it into practice.""A dangerous theory!" came from Sir Thomass tight lips. Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened."Yes," he tinued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping on sense, and discover when it is too te that the only things one never regrets are ones mistakes."A ugh ran round the table.He pyed with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape aured it; made i九_九_藏_書_網t iridest with fand wi with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catg the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wiained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bate over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vats bck, dripping, sloping sides. It was araordinary improvisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the scioushat amongst his audiehere was one whose temperament he wished to fasate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, ughing. Dorian Gray ook his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wrowing grave in his darkening eyes.At st, liveried in the e of the age, reality ehe room in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. "How annoying!" she cried. "I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting at Williss Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am te he is sure to be furious, and I couldnt have a se in this bo. It is far tile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I dont know what to say about your views. You must e and dih us some night. Tuesday? Are you diseuesday?""For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess," said Lord Henry with a bow."Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you," she cried; "so mind you e"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the other dies.When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking a chair close to him, pced his hand upon his arm."You talk books away," he said; "why dont you write one?""I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a hat would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary publi Engnd for anything except neers, primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of literature.""I fear you are right," answered Mr. Erskine. "I myself used to have literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And now, my dear young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you really meant all that you said to us at lunch?""I quite fet what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very bad?""Very bad indeed. In fact I sider you extremely dangerous, and if anything happens tood duchess, we shall all look on you as being primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life. The geion into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you are tired of London, e down to Treadley and expound to me your philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate enough to possess.""I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege. It has a perfect host, and a perfect library.""You will plete it," answered the old gentleman with a courteous bow. "And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due at the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there.""All of you, Mr. Erskine?""Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. ractising for an English Academy of Letters."Lord Henry ughed and rose. "I am going to the park," he cried.As he assing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. "Let me e with you," he murmured."But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him," answered Lord Henry."I would sooner e with you; yes, I feel I must e with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No oalks so wonderfully as you do.""Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling. "All I want now is to look at life. You may e and look at it with me, if you care to."