Oscar Wilde, Art and Morality: A Defence of "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
Philosophy
Oscar Wilde, Art and Morality: A Defence of "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. Picture of Dorian Gray
The following are the chief passages in the 1890 edition which are
omitted (or have undergone alteration) in the 1891 edition. (_The
figures in brackets refer to the page in the 1891 edition where the
omission or alteration is made_).
LIPPINCOTT'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 1890 (Volume xlvi.)
CHAPTER I.
Page
6 "Well, I will tell you what it is."
"Please don't."
"I must. I want you to explain...." (7)
6 "Well, this is incredible," repeated Hallward, rather
bitterly,--"incredible to me at times. I don't know what it means. The
story is simply this...."(8)
6 You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. 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.... (9)
7 I knew that if I spoke to Dorian I would become absolutely devoted to
him, and that I ought not to speak to him. I grew afraid.... (9)
7 perfectly audible to everybody in the room, something like, 'Sir
Humpty Dumpty--you know--Afghan frontier. Russian intrigues: very
successful man--wife killed by an elephant--quite inconsolable--wants to
marry a beautiful American widow--everybody does now-a-days--hates Mr.
Gladstone--but very much interested in beetles: ask him what he thinks
of Schouvaloff.' I simply fled....(11)
8 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I quite inseparable--engaged to be
married to the same man--I mean married on the same day--how very silly
of me! Quite forget what he does....(11)
9 I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. Of course sometimes
it is only for a few minutes. But a few minutes with somebody one
worships mean a great deal."
"But you don't really worship him?"
"I do."
"How extraordinary. I thought you would never care for anything but your
painting,--your art, I should say. Art sounds better, doesn't it?"...
(14)
10 After some time he came back. "You don't understand, Harry," he said.
"Dorian Gray is merely to me a motive in art.... (16)
10 "Because I have put into it all the extraordinary romance of which,
of course, I have never dared to speak to him.... (16)
10 I give myself away. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we walk home
together from the club arm in arm, or sit in the studio.... (17)
11, 12 Don't take away from me the one person that makes life absolutely
lovely to me, and that gives to my art whatever wonder or charm it
possesses. Mind, Harry, I trust you." ... (20, 21)
CHAPTER II.
12 No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. He was made to be
worshipped.... (23)
16 You are a wonderful creature. You know more than you think.... (31)
19, 20 "This is your doing, Harry," said Hallward, bitterly.
"My doing?"
"Yes, yours, and you know it." Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders (40)
20 "And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you
don't really mind being called a boy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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