Pagina 48 de 490

"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and

wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its

lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you

will feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go,

you charm the world. Will it always be so? ... You have a

wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don't frown. You have. And

beauty is a form of genius-is higher, indeed, than genius, as it

needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like

sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of

that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It

has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those

who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won't

smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only superficial.

That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as thought

is. To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow

people who do not judge by appearances.