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said Lord Henry. "If you stay any longer in this glare you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must not let yourself become sunburnt. It would be very unbecoming to you."
"What does it matter?" cried Dorian laughing, as he sat down on the seat that was at the end of the garden.
"It should matter every thing to you, Mr. Gray."
"Why?"
"Because you have now the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having."
"I don't feel that, Lord Henry."
"No: you don't feel it now. Someday, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideousterrible fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. If you set yourself to know life you will look evil, if you are afraid of life you will lookbe expressionless, and vacant, and common. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray, and Beauty like youth is a form of Genius, is higher indeed than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring time, or the
