Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1896-10-10

He himself, on returning home from one
d those mysterious and prolonged absences
that gave rise TO such strange conjecture
among those who were his friends, or
thought that they were so, would creep up
stairs to the locked room, open the door with
the key that had never left him, and stand
With a mirror In 'front.' Of the portrait that
Basil HaIlward had painted Of him, looking
now at the evil and aged face on the can
vas, and now at the fair young face that
aughed back at him from the polished
EENs. The very sharpness OF the contrast
ised to quicken his sense OF pleasure. He
rev more and more enamored Of his own
beauty. more ami more interested IN the
corruption Of his own soul. He would ex-
amino with minute care. and often with a
nonstrous and terrible delight, the hideous
ines that scared the wrinkiing forehead or
;rawled around the heavy sensual mouth,
wondering sometimes which were the more
horrible, tho signs Of sin or the signs of age.
he would place his white hands beside tho
coarse bloated hands Of the picture. and
mile. He Knocked the misshapcn body and
he falling limbs.
There were moments. indeed. at night,
when. lying sleepless IN his own delicately
scented chamber. or in the soriid room Of
he little Ml-famed tavern near the Docks,
which. under an assumed name, and in dis
yuise, il was his habit 10 frequent. he would
.hink of the ruin he had brought upon his
soul, with a pity that was all the more
poignant because IL was purely selfish.
But moments such as these were rare, That
:priosity about life that, many years DO
ore. Lord Henry had stirred in him. as
hey sat together in the garden of their
riend. seemed 10 increase with qualification.
rhc more he knew, the more he desired 10
now. He had mad hungels that grew more
avenOus as he fed them.
Yet he was not really reckless. at any rate
n his relations TO society. Once or twice
very month during the winter, and on each
Wednesday evening, while The season
lsted, he would throw open TO the world
us beautiful house and have the most tele-
Iratcd musicians of the day TO charm his
ruests with the wonders of their art. His
title dinners, in the settling Of which Lord
Henry always assisted him. were noted as
nuch for the careful selection and placing
If those invited, as for the exquisite taste
shown in the decoration Of the table. with
IS subtle symphonic arrangements Of exotic
overs and embroidered cloths, and
antique plate of gold and silver. Indeed.
here were many, especially among the
toung men. who saw on fancied they saw, in
Dorian Gray the true realization OF a type
# which they had often dreamed in Elton
n Oxford days, "A type that was 10 conbin
,omething Of the real culture of the scholar
With all the grace and distinction and per.
ect manner of a citizen Of the world. To
hem he seemed 10 belong TO those whom
Dante describes as having sought to make
themselves perfect by the worship Of
)eauty." Like Gautier, he was one for
whom 1.-The visible world existed"
And, certainly, to him life itself was the
irst, the greatest, of the arts. and for it all
he other arts seemed 70 be but "A prepare
,on. Fashion, by which what is really fan
astic becomes for a moment universal, and
andyisn. which. in It's own way, is an ut
cmpt to assert the absolute modcrnity of
eauty, had, of course. their fascination for
i'm. His mode Of dressing, and the par
icular styles that he affected from time 10
inc, had their marked influence on the
Dung exquisites of the Mayfair balls and
all Mall club windows, who copied him in
;crything that he did, and tried to repro
luce the accidental charm Of his graceful.
hough to him half-scrious, fopperies.
For, while he was but too ready TO accept
he position that was almost Immediately
,nered 10 him on his coming of age, an(
ound, indeed, a subtle pleasure in tho
bought that he might really become 70 the
London of his own day what TO imperial
Neronian Rome the author Of the ''Satyri.
on" had once been, yet in his Utmost heart
ne desired to be something more than a
mere d,buer eegdnttdrum, To be consulted or
the wearing of a jewel, or the ~knotting Of a
n Yfs ti btfr W9SSuitaf f faeeee NJ ss5ndA Il eS44AAssvpAhe
and its ordered principles and find in the
spiritualizing Of the senses its highest real
i~zation.
The worship Of the senses has often, and
with much justice, been decried, men feel
ing a natural instinct of terror about pass
ions and sensations that seem stronger than
ourselves, and that we are conscious o.
sharing with the less highly organized
forms Of existence. But it appeared to
Dorian Gray that the true nature of the
senses had never been understood, and that
they had remained savage and animal mere
ly because the world had sought TO starve
llciu luIO ouDlnlSoion UT 10 NIL lHeII W pain,
instead Of aiming at making them elements
of a new spirituality, Of which a fine in
stinct for beauty was To be the dominant
characteristic As he looked back upon man
moving through history, he was haunted by
"a feeling of loss. So much had been sur
rendered! and TO such little purpose! There
had been mad, willful reflections, monstrous
forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose
origin was fear, and whose result was a
degradation infinitely more terrible than the
fancied degradation from which, in their
ignorance, they had sought to escape.
Nature in her wonderful irony driving the
anchorite out to herd with the wild animals
Of the desert and giving To the hermit the
beasts of the field as his companions.
Yes, there was to be, as Lord Henry had
prophesied, a new hedonism that was to re-
create life, and to save it from that harsh,
uncomely p%uritanism that is having in our
w day, its curious revival. Ii was to have
its service of the intellect, certainly; yet it
vas never to accept any theory OF system
that would involve the sacrifice of any mode
of passionate experience. It's aim, indeed,
was to be experienced itself, and not the
fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they
might be. OF the aseetism that deadens the
senses. as of the vulgar profiigacy that dulls
| them, /: was 70 know nothing. But it was
the moments Of a life that is itself but q
moment.
There are few Of us who have not some