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

ne nlnSelf, on returning nome from onc
Of 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 tho 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 Hallward 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
El;>s. The very sharpness Of the contrast
lsed TO quicken his sense of pleasure. He
grew more and more cnamored Of his own
beauty. more and more interested in the
corruption Of his w soul He would ex-
anime with minute care, and often with a
nonstrous and terrible delight, the hideous
ines that scared the wrinkling forehead or
rawlcd around the heavy sensual mouth,
wondering sometimes which were the more
horrible, the signs Of sin or the signs of age.
lie would place his white hands beside tho
'oarse bloatcd hands Of the picture, and
mule. He Knocked the misshapcn body and
he failing limbs.
There Were moments. indeed. at night,
when. lying slceplcss in his own delicately
scented chamber. or in the soriid room Of
he little ill-famed tavern near the Docks,
which, under an assumed name, M in dis
yuise, il was his habit to frequent. he would
hink Of the ruin be had brought upon his
foul, with a pity that was all the more
poignant because 1t was purely selfish.
But moment such as these were rare. That
curiosity about life that, many years be-
ore. Lord Henry had stirred in him. as
hey sat together in the garden of their
riend, seemed TO Increase with qualification.
The more he knew, the more he desired 10
NOW. He had mad hungers that grew more
1venous ms lac fed them.
Yet he was not really reckless, at amy 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
MS beautiful house and have the most tele-
)rated musicians of the day TO charm his
quests with the wonder OF their art. His
title dinners, in the settling Of which Lord
Henry always assisted him, were noted as
much 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
ntique plate of gold and silver. Indeed,
here were many, especially among the
'Oung men. who saw or fancicd they saw, ia
Dorian Gray the true realization of a type
# which they had often dreamed in Elton
n Oxford days, "a type that was 10 combine
something 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 to belong to those whom
Dante describes as having sought 10 make
themselves perfect by the worship of
beauty Like Gautier, he was one for
Nhom 1.-The visible world existed"
And, certainly, TO him life itself was the
irst. the greatest, of the arts, and for il all
hc other arts seemed 10 be but IA prepare
ION. Fashion, by which what is really fan.
Istic becomes for Il universal, and
andyism, which, in It's own way, is an Mt
empt to assert the absolute modcrnity of
eauty, had, of course, their fascination for
i'm. His mode of dressing, and the par
ocular styles that he affected from time to
ime, had their marked influence on the
Dung exquisites Of the Mayfair balls and
'all Mall club windows, who copied him IL
yerything that he did, and tried TO repro
luce the accidental charm Of his graceful
hough TO him half-scrious, fopperics.
For, while he was but too ready to accept
he position that was almost Immediately
pffercd to him ON his coming of age, I'M,
'ound, indeed, II subtle pleasure in the
hought that he might really become TO the
London of his own day what to imperial
Ncronian Rome the author of the "Satyri-
'on" had once been, yet in his inmost heart
he desired to he something more than Il
mere drbitcr elcgdntidrUm, TO be consulted on
he wearing of "A jewel, or the k~notting of "a
neck-tie, or the conduct Of IA cane. He
sought TO elaborate some new scheme of
life that would nave its reasoned philosophy
and its ordered principles and find in the
spiritualizing of the senses its highest real
iZation.
The worship of the senses has often, and
with much justice, been decricd, men feet
ing "A natural instinct Of terror about pass
ions and sensations that seem stronger than
ourselves, and that we are conscious of
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
~ because the world had sought TO starvo
them INTO submission or TO kill them by pain,
instead of aiming at making them elemeUts
OF a new spirituality, of which Il 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 sclf-tOrturc and self-denial, whose
origin was fear, and whose result was II
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
archoritc 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 oul
own day, its curious revival. 1t was &c have
its service Of the intellect, certainly; yet il
was never TO accept any theory or 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 ascetism that deadens the
senses, as Of the vulgar profigacy that dulls
them, it was to know nothing. Blu it was
to teach maj to concentrate himself upor