servility.  There was something about him, Harry, that amused me.  He was such a monster.  You will laugh at me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the stage-box.  To the present day I can’t make out why I did so; and yet if I hadn’t—­ my dear Harry, if I hadn’t—­I should have missed the greatest romance of my life.  I see you are laughing.  It is horrid of you!”

“I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. 
But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. 
You should say the first romance of your life.  You will
always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. 
A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. 
That is the one use of the idle classes of a country. 
Don’t be afraid.  There are exquisite things in store for you. 
This is merely the beginning.”

“Do you think my nature so shallow?” cried Dorian Gray angrily.

“No; I think your nature so deep.”

“How do you mean?”

“My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.  Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect—­simply a confession of failure.  Faithfulness!  I must analyse it some day.  The passion for property is in it.  There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.  But I don’t want to interrupt you.  Go on with your story.”

“Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.  I looked out from behind the curtain and surveyed the house.  It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake.  The gallery and pit were fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the dress-circle.  Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there was a terrible consumption of nuts going on.”

“It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama.”

“Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.  I began to wonder what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill.  What do you think the play was, Harry?”

“I should think ‘The Idiot Boy’, or ‘Dumb but Innocent’.  Our fathers used to like that sort of piece, I believe.  The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.  In art, as in politics, les grandperes ont toujours tort.”