. . . And Basil? From a psychological point of view,
how interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh
mode of looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely
visible presence of one who was unconscious of it all;
the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen
in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryadlike and not afraid,
because in his soul who sought for her there had been wakened
that wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed;
the mere shapes and patterns of things becoming, as it were,
refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though
they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect
form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was!
He remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato,
that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it?
Was it not Buonarotti who had carved it in the coloured marbles
of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own century it was strange.
. . . Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it,
the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait.
He would seek to dominate him--had already, indeed,
half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own.
There was something fascinating in this son of love and
death.

Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had
passed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.
When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they
had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick
and passed into the dining-room.

"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.