"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled
and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and
passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it,
you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the
world. Will it always be so?

"You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don't frown. You
have. And Beauty is a form of Genius,--is higher, indeed, than
Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of
the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark
waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be
questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes
princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it
you won't smile.

"People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be
so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought. To me, Beauty
is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge
by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not
the invisible.

"Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods
give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which
really to live. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it,
and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left
[17] for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs
that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats.
Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful.
Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.