There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
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“Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn’t know you were so vain; and I really can’t see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you–well, of course you have an intellectual expression, and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don’t flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him.”
“Not at all,” answered Lord Henry, “not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet–we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke’s–we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it–much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me.”
“Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,” cried Lord Henry, laughing;
Lord Henry smiled, and, leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass, and examined it. “I am quite sure I shall understand it,” he replied, gazing intently at the little golden white-feathered disk, “and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.”
“Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience
is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.”
“And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?” asked his companion. “I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know.”
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one,” said the young lord, plucking another daisy.
“How horribly unjust of you!” cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back, and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. “Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain.”
“My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can’t help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathise with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property, and that if anyone of us makes an ass of himself he is poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the Divorce Court, their indignation was quite magnificent. And yet I don’t suppose that ten per cent. of the proletariat live correctly.”
Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard, and tapped the toe of his patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. “How English you are, Basil! That is the second time you have made that observation. If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman–always a rash thing to do–he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don’t propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?”
“Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.”
“Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,” murmured Lord Henry. “Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man–that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won’t like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic.”
“Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.”
Το παραπάνω απόσπασμα προέρχεται από ένα βιβλίο που λατρεύω: “The Picture Of Dorian Gray”. Γενικά, ο Oscar Wilde είναι η μεγάλη μου αγάπη! Παρ’ όλα αυτά θεωρώ πως ο τίτλος του είναι πηγή παραπληροφόρησης. Ok καλός ο Dorian, δε λέω, αλλά το πιο ενδιαφέρον πρόσωπο στο βιβλίο (και μακράν ένας από τους καλύτερους μυθιστορηματικούς ήρωες) είναι ο Lord Harry. Παραπάνω ξεχώρισα αποσπάσματα από το συγκεκριμένο χαρακτήρα, από το πρώτο κεφάλαιο του βιβλίου. Το βιβλίο το διάβασα για πρώτη φορά στο δημοτικό (είχαμε μια άθλια δανειστική βιβλιοθήκη στο σχολείο μου). Δεν κατάλαβα σχεδόν τίποτα, πέρα από το γεγονός ότι υπήρχε ένας πολύ όμορφος νέος. Αλλά ο Harry μου έμεινε! Δεν μπορούσα με τίποτα να σταματήσω τον σκέφτομαι. Πήρα ένα τετράδιο και αντέγραψα από το βιβλίο όλα τα σημεία όπου έλεγε έστω και μισή κουβέντα. (αργότερα ανακάλυψα πως την πρακτική αυτή την ακολούθησαν κι άλλοι…) Anyway, μετά από αυτό η φυσιολογική εξέλιξη είναι να δεις πολλά πράγματα με άλλα μάτια… Ο Wilde έγινε πάθος! Και παραμένει. Το να προτείνω απλά να διαβάσει κανείς βιβλία του είναι λάθος. Πιστεύω ότι τη λογοτεχνία (την ποίηση, τη μουσική, τη ζωγραφική, την τέχνη γενικά) τα ανακαλύπτει κανείς μόνος του και ή του μιλάνε ή όχι.
Υ.Γ. Δύο από τις αγαπημένες μου ρήσεις του Wilde είναι οι παρακάτω:
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
“The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.”
