 at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or horror if
Dorian Gray entered the room.
    Yet these whispered scandals only increased, in the eyes of many, his
strange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certain element of security.
Society, civilised society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to
the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively
that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in his opinion, the
highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.
And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has
given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life.
Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrées, as Lord Henry
remarked once, in a discussion on the subject; and there is possibly a good deal
to be said for his view. For the canons of good society are, or should be, the
same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have
the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the
insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such
plays delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is
merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.
    Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion. He used to wonder at the
shallow psychology of those who conceive the Ego in man as a thing simple,
permanent, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a being with myriad
lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature that bore within
itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted
with the monstrous maladies of the dead. He loved to stroll through the gaunt
cold picture-gallery of his country house and look at the various portraits of
those whose blood flowed in his veins. Here was Philip Herbert, described by
Francis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King
James, as one who was caressed by the Court for his handsome face, which kept
him not long company. Was it young Herbert's life that he sometimes led? Had
some strange poisonous germ crept from body to body till it had reached his own?
Was it some dim sense of that ruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and
almost without cause, give utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad
prayer that had so changed his
