📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 68
1"Was that a paradox?" asked Mr. Erskine. "I did not think so. Perhaps it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of
2truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them." "Dear
3me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue! I am sure I never can make out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am
4quite vexed with you. Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up the East End? I assure you he would
5be quite invaluable. They would love his playing." "I want him to play to me," cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked
6down the table and caught a bright answering glance. "But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," continued Lady Agatha. "I
7can sympathize with everything except suffering," said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. "I cannot sympathize with
8that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with
9pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores, the better."
10"Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir Thomas with a grave shake of the head. "Quite so,"
11answered the young lord. "It is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves." The politician
12looked at him keenly. "What change do you propose, then?" he asked. Lord Henry laughed. "I don't desire to change
13anything in England except the weather," he answered. "I am quite content with philosophic contemplation. But, as the
14nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to
15science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is
16that it is not emotional." "But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vandeleur timidly. "Terribly grave,"
17echoed Lady Agatha. Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's
18original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different." "You are really very
19comforting," warbled the duchess. "I have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no
20interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to look her in the face without a blush." "A blush is
21very becoming, Duchess," remarked Lord Henry. "Only when one is young," she answered. "When an old woman like myself
22blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell me how to become young again." He thought for a
23moment. "Can you remember any great error that you committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her
24across the table. "A great many, I fear," she cried. "Then commit them over again," he said gravely. "To get back one's
25youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies." "A delightful theory!" she exclaimed. "I must put it into practice." "A
26dangerous theory!" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr.
27Erskine listened. "Yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of
28creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." A
29laugh ran round the table. He played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it
30escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on,
31soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one
32might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the
33slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at
34which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in
35red foam over the vat's black, dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. He felt that the eyes of
36Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished
37to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic,
38irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took
39his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wonder growing grave in
40his darkening eyes. At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to
41tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. "How annoying!" she cried. "I must
42go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going
43to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too
44fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and
45dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don't know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some night.
46Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?" "For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess," said Lord Henry with a bow. "Ah!
47that is very nice, and very wrong of you," she cried; "so mind you come"; and she swept out of the room, followed by
48Lady Agatha and the other ladies. When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking a chair close
49to him, placed his hand upon his arm. "You talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?" "I am too fond of
50reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as
51lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public in England for anything except newspapers,
52primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of literature."
53"I fear you are right," answered Mr. Erskine. "I myself used to have literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago.
54And now, my dear young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you really meant all that you said to
55us at lunch?" "I quite forget what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very bad?" "Very bad indeed. In fact I
56consider you extremely dangerous, and if anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being
57primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life. The generation into which I was born was tedious.
58Some day, when you are tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your philosophy of pleasure over some
59admirable Burgundy I am fortunate enough to possess." "I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great
60privilege. It has a perfect host, and a perfect library." "You will complete it," answered the old gentleman with a
61courteous bow. "And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due at the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we
62sleep there." "All of you, Mr. Erskine?" "Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English Academy of
63Letters." Lord Henry laughed and rose. "I am going to the park," he cried. As he was passing out of the door, Dorian
64Gray touched him on the arm. "Let me come with you," he murmured. "But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go
65and see him," answered Lord Henry. "I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you. Do let me. And you
66will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks so wonderfully as you do." "Ah! I have talked quite enough for
67to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling. "All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care
68to."
🎉 全部完成！共 68 行