“My dear boy, no woman is a genius.  Women are a decorative sex.  They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.  Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.”

“Harry, how can you?”

“My dear Dorian, it is quite true.  I am analysing women at present, so I ought to know.  The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.  I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured.  The plain women are very useful.  If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper.  The other women are very charming.  They commit one mistake, however.  They paint in order to try and look young.  Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.  Rouge and esprit used to go together.  That is all over now.  As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.  As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can’t be admitted into decent society.  However, tell me about your genius.  How long have you known her?”

“Ah!  Harry, your views terrify me.”

“Never mind that.  How long have you known her?”

“About three weeks.”

“And where did you come across her?”

“I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn’t be unsympathetic about it.  After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.  You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.  For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.  As I lounged in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led.  Some of them fascinated me.  Others filled me with terror.  There was an exquisite poison in the air.  I had a passion for sensations. . . .  Well, one evening about seven o’clock, I determined to go out in search of some adventure.  I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me.  I fancied a thousand things.  The mere danger gave me a sense of delight.  I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret of life.  I don’t know what I expected, but I went out and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black grassless squares.  About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.  A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.  He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt.  ‘Have a box, my Lord?’ he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous