"I am quite certain, Mr. Hallward, that if you sent this oil painting to the Academy, or to any place you liked, you would win a large money prize — and I see you in dire need of one."

"But I cannot exhibit it, Mr. Henry, because I am afraid — afraid that people will see it as I see it with these two eyes of mine. There is a great deal of myself in this picture. I have put into it the lofty sensations and exalted feeling that stir in my breast, and so it has gained beauty upon beauty." Mr. Henry was taken aback when he heard these last words from his com-panion and interlocutor, the painter Hallward, and he gazed on, smiling, his eyes moving between the canvas and the painter: he saw a vast difference between that innocent, beautiful angel and that big, ugly, powerful man. He went on: "Truly, sir, I do not deny you the marks of intelligence and acumen; I do not deny you your wise soul and your thinking mind. But do you not see with me that there is a vast difference between you and that canvas, which looks as though it were made of ivory and crowned with red roses, appearing like Adonis in the flower of his beauty and vigor??" The painter answered him mockingly: "I see what you see. But do you not know that true beauty fades and retreats when the first trace of intellectual thought appears? If keenness of mind is lost, the beautiful face is spoiled. That companion with whose picture I have fallen in love is nothing but the beautiful image of a man who does not think and does not use his mental powers. This canvas I am so taken with is, in my eyes, nothing but beautiful, artful features that spare us in winter the beauty of flowers, and suggest to us in summer an outward beauty stripped of all sensibility. The canvas that is colored with the painter's feeling and the stirrings of his soul — that is the true canvas, the one that belongs to the artist and not to the sitter; and the one who sat to me is nothing but a beautiful young man with sweet looks. If I paint him now in this canvas of mine, I paint the beauty of his face and of his looks; I do not paint the sensations and feelings that move within his soul, for his feelings would spoil the beauty of the canvas and disfigure my art. And so I have lent my own self and spirit to make of them a dwelling for that beautiful, bewitching body."

A few minutes later the subject of the painting entered, with his bewitching beauty, his light spirit, and his musical movements. And only minutes passed before "Dorian Gray" came objecting to the beauty of his portrait, which would keep its youth, its freshness, and its charm. He came to break that canvas — wishing that the workings of the years to come might tell upon it, while the cares and troubles of life left his own soul and youth untouched. He wished that picture to age and grow, and his feeling to grow with it, with-out his growing old himself and the marks of the years and days showing on his face. He wished to sacrifice his money and his station, on condition that it should change while his own beauty did not. He wished it to lose its charm without his losing his own youth and vigor... And what he wanted was granted him....

There, in Dorian Gray's house, in a great hall, was placed that enchanting canvas over whose surfaces were reflected the signs of youth in its loftiest meaning. There it conversed with its owner every day, the passing of the days neither taking anything from it nor adding anything to it. But the days soon changed Dorian Gray's life, through his acquaintance with a dancing girl in whom he loved her inclination to acting and her mastery of performance, together with her captivating beauty... And that girl, once she knew him, clung to his love and forgot acting, and her art was spoiled and sank away. And when she learned that Dorian Gray had loved her for her art and her fame, she took her own life — and her crime was written down against his soul, and the blood of her life etched the first marks of criminality upon the picture of Dorian Gray. Mr. Gray started when he saw his canvas at first glance, with criminal, hateful wrinkles drawn about its mouth; he felt its glances changing, and he removed the painting from his sight. But there was a hidden force driving him to look at the canvas, which he had thrown into an old room after wrapping it in carpets and cloths.

His spirit began to change with his knowing the girl. God began to change his picture without changing his person. The picture grows, and criminality grows with it. It ages, and ugliness and hideousness age with it. It changes in a strange fashion. Have the colors some