The Wisdom of Oscar Wilde by the Wisdom of Page B

try to “out-baby” Wordsworth, we are glad to say; but he occasionally succeeds in “out-glittering” Keats, and, here and there, in his book we come across strange crudities and irritating conceits. But when he is at his best he is very good. If he has not the grand simplicity of epic treatment, he has at least something of the largeness of vision that belongs to the epical temper. He does not rob of their stature the great heroes of Celtic mythology. He is very naïve and very primitive and speaks of his giants with the air of a child.
    In one or two places the music is faulty, the construction is sometimes too involved, and the word “populace” in the last line is rather infelicitous; but, when all is said, it is impossible not to feel in these stanzas the presence of the true poetic spirit.

T HE P ICTURE OF D ORIAN G RAY (1890, 1891)
    After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes, and frowning. “It is quite finished,” he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.
    Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.
    “My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,” he said. “It is the finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at yourself.”
    The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. “Is it really finished?” he murmured, stepping down from the platform.
    “Quite finished,” said the painter. “ And you have sat splendidly to-day. I am awfully obliged to you.”
    “That is entirely due to me,” broke in Lord Henry. “Isn’t it, Mr. Gray?”
    Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture, and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognised himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward’s compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.
    As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.
    “Don’t you like it?” cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lad’s silence, not understanding what it meant.
    “Of course he likes it,” said Lord Henry. “Who wouldn’t like it ? It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it.”
    “It is not my property, Harry.”
    “Whose property is it?”
    “Dorian’s, of course,” answered the painter.
    “He is a very lucky fellow.”
    “How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will