Yet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his strange and dangerous charm.  His great wealth was a certain element of security.  Society—­civilized society, at least—­ is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating.  It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.  And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life.  Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees, as Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is possibly a good deal to be said for his view.  For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art.  Form is absolutely essential to it.  It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us.  Is insincerity such a terrible thing?  I think not.  It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.

Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray’s opinion.  He used to wonder at the shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence.  To him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead.  He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery of his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose blood flowed in his veins.  Here was Philip Herbert, described by Francis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, as one who was “caressed by the Court for his handsome face, which kept him not long company.”  Was it young Herbert’s life that he sometimes led?  Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body to body till it had reached his own?  Was it some dim sense of that ruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause, give utterance, in Basil Hallward’s studio, to the mad prayer that had so changed his life?  Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled surcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard, with his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet.  What had this man’s legacy been?  Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him some inheritance of sin and shame?  Were his own actions merely the dreams that the dead man had not dared to realize?  Here, from the fading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl stomacher, and pink slashed sleeves.  A flower was in her right hand, and her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses.  On a table by her side