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body, even a stockbroker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge over-dressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became consciousfelt that some one was looking at me. I turned half way round, and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growinggrew pale. A curious instinctfeeling of terror came over me. I knew that I had at last come face to face with
some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that it would absorbbe my naturelife, my soul, my art, itself. I did not want any extreme influence of that kind in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I have always been. My father destined me for the army. I insisted on going to Oxford. Then he made me enter my name at the Middle Temple. Before I had eaten half a dozen dinners I gave up the Bar, and announced my intention of becoming a painter. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so till I met Dorian Gray. Then — but I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a a terrible crisis in my
