Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories quotes

and they gave to her face something of the frame of a saint, with not a little of the fascination of a sinner. She was a curious psychological study.

Early in life she had discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality.

She had more than once changed her husband; indeed, Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal about her.

“

My dear Duchess, surely Providence can resist temptation by this time.

I think everyone should have their hands told once a month, so as to know what not to do. Of course, one does it all the same, but it is so pleasant to be warned. Now if someone doesn’t go and fetch Mr.

“My dear Duchess, surely Providence can resist temptation by this time.

I think everyone should have their hands told once a month, so as to know what not to do. Of course, one does it all the same, but it is so pleasant to be warned.

Now if someone doesn’t go and fetch Mr. Podgers at once, I shall have to go myself.”

“Comfort,” said Mr. Podgers, “and modern improvements, and hot water laid on in every bedroom. Your Grace is quite right.

Comfort is the only thing our civilisation can give us.

“You have told the Duchess’s character admirably, Mr.

“

If a woman can’t make her mistakes charming, she is only a female

,” was the answer. “But you must read some more hands for us. Come, Sir Thomas, show Mr. Podgers yours,” and a genial-looking old gentleman, in a white waistcoat, came forward, and held out a thick rugged hand, with a very long third finger.

“Ah! I am a little sorry to hear you say that. The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.

No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.

Mr. Podgers, Lord Arthur Savile is dying to have his hand read. Don’t tell him that he is engaged to one of the most beautiful girls in London, because that appeared in the Morning Post a month ago.

“Ah! I am a little sorry to hear you say that.

The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.

No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing. Mr. Podgers, Lord Arthur Savile is dying to have his hand read.

“My dear child, they never are too fascinating,” cried Lady Windermere. “But what I want are details.

Details are the only things that interest.

What is going to happen to Lord Arthur?”

His reason revolted against it, and yet he felt that some tragedy was hanging over him, and that he had been suddenly called upon to bear an intolerable burden.

Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears.

But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal.

They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications.

Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Suddenly Mr. Podgers entered the room. When he saw Lord Arthur he started, and his coarse, fat face became a sort of greenish-yellow colour. The two men’s eyes met, and for a moment there was silence.

Once he stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands. He thought he could detect the stain of blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke from his trembling lips.

Murder! that is what the cheiromantist had seen there.

Murder! The very night seemed to know it, and the desolate wind to howl it in his ear. The dark corners of the streets were full of it. It grinned at him from the roofs of the houses.

its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence.

He was still very young.

After a time he found himself in front of Marylebone Church. The silent roadway looked like a long riband of polished silver, flecked here and there by the dark arabesques of waving shadows.

Rude as they were, with their heavy, hobnailed shoes, and their awkward gait, they brought a little of a ready with them. He felt that they had lived with Nature, and that she had taught them peace.

He envied them all that they did not know.

By the time he had reached Belgrave Square the sky was a faint blue, and the birds were beginning to twitter in the gardens.

Fortunately also, for him, he was no mere dreamer, or idle dilettante. Had he been so, he would have hesitated, like Hamlet, and let irresolution mar his purpose. But he was essentially practical.

Life to him meant action, rather than thought. He had that rarest of all things, common sense.

The wild, turbid feelings of the previous night had by this time completely passed away, and it was almost with a sense of shame that he looked back upon his mad wanderings from street to street, his fierce emotional agony.

The only question that seemed to trouble him was, whom to make away with; for he was not blind to the fact that murder, like the religions of the Pagan world, requires a victim as well as a priest.

Not being a genius, he had no enemies

, and indeed he felt that this was not the time for the gratification of any personal pique or dislike, the mission in which he was engaged being one of great and grave solemnity.

Why, if it were not for dear Lady Jansen, who sends me all the worst French novels she can find, I don’t think I could get through the day.

Doctors are no use at all, except to get fees out of one.

They can’t even cure my heartburn.”

“I should like to take it now,” said Lady Clementina, holding up to the light the little transparent capsule, with its floating bubble of liquid aconitine. “I am sure it is delicious.

The fact is that, though I hate doctors, I love medicines.

However, I’ll keep it till my next attack.”

May I ask for whom it is intended? If it is for the police, or for anyone connected with Scotland Yard, I am afraid I cannot do anything for you.

The English detectives are really our best friends, and I have always found that by relying on their stupidity, we can do exactly what we like.

I could not spare one of them.”

“Oh, that is nothing! It is a pleasure to me.

I do not work for money; I live entirely for my art.

”

He had done his best to commit this murder, but on both occasions he had failed, and through no fault of his own. He had tried to do his duty, but it seemed as if Destiny herself had turned traitor.

He was oppressed with the sense of the barrenness of good intentions, of the futility of trying to be fine.

Perhaps, it would be better to break off the marriage altogether. Sybil would suffer, it is true, but suffering could not really mar a nature so noble as hers. As for himself, what did it matter?

“

You foolish boy! Why, the cake is not even ordered!

” said Sybil, laughing through her tears.

They were more than handsome, however—they were happy. Never for a single moment did Lord Arthur regret all that he had suffered for Sybil’s sake, while she, on her side, gave him the best things a woman can give to any man—worship, tenderness, and love.

For them romance was not killed by reality. They always felt young.

Some years afterwards, when two beautiful children had been born to them, Lady Windermere came down on a visit to Alton Priory, a lovely old place, that had been the Duke’s wedding present to his son;

“

I have no time to be happy, Sybil. I always like the last person who is introduced to me; but, as a rule, as soon as I know people I get tired of them.

”

“

Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life,

” he murmured, throwing himself into a wicker chair.

“

Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville. But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy.

”

Mrs. Otis, who, as Miss Lucretia R. Tappan, of West 53rd Street, had been a celebrated New York belle, was now a very handsome, middle-aged woman, with fine eyes, and a superb profile.

Many American ladies on leaving their native land adopt an appearance of chronic ill-health, under the impression that it is a form of European refinement

, but Mrs. Otis had never fallen into this error. She had a magnificent constitution, and a really wonderful amount of animal spirits.

“What a monstrous climate!” said the American Minister calmly, as he lit a long cheroot. “

I guess the old country is so overpopulated that they have not enough decent weather for everybody.

I have always been of opinion that emigration is the only thing for England.”

“

Charge it to her like breakages,

” answered the Minister; “she won’t faint after that,” and in a few moments Mrs. Umney certainly came to. There was no doubt, however, that she was extremely upset, and she sternly warned Mr. Otis to beware of some trouble coming to the house.

On reaching a small secret chamber in the left wing, he leaned up against a moonbeam to recover his breath, and began to try and realise his position.

Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted.

He thought of the Dowager Duchess, whom he had frightened into a fit as she stood before the glass in her lace and diamonds;

… the beautiful Lady Stutfield, who was always obliged to wear a black velvet band round her throat to hide the mark of five fingers burnt upon her white skin, and who drowned herself at last in the carp-pond at the end of the King’s Walk.

With the enthusiastic egotism of the true artist he went over his most celebrated performances

, and smiled bitterly to himself as he recalled to mind his last appearance as “Red Ruben, or the Strangled Babe,” his début as “Gaunt Gibeon, the Bloodsucker of Bexley Moor,” and the furore he had excited one lovely June evening by merely playing ninepins …

“It is no reason at all for existing, and you know you have been very wicked. Mrs. Umney told us, the first day we arrived here, that you had killed your wife.”

“Well, I quite admit it,” said the Ghost petulantly, “but it was a purely family matter, and concerned no one else.”

“It is very wrong to kill anyone,” said Virginia, who at times had a sweet Puritan gravity, caught from some old New England ancestor.

“

Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

My wife was very plain, never had my ruffs properly starched, and knew nothing about cookery. Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a magnificent pricket, and do you know how she had it sent up to table?

“I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities,” said Virginia satirically.

“No ruins! no curiosities!” answered the Ghost; “you have your navy and your manners.”

“Good evening; I will go and ask papa to get the twins an extra week’s holiday.”

“

I have not slept for three hundred years,

” he said sadly, and Virginia’s beautiful blue eyes opened in wonder; “for three hundred years I have not slept, and I am so tired.”

“Yes, Death.

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.

To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of Death’s house, for Love is always with you, and Love is stronger than Death is.”

… allow his daughter to retain the present the ghost had given her, and when, in the spring of 1890, the young Duchess of Cheshire was presented at the Queen’s first drawing-room on the occasion of her marriage, her jewels were the universal theme of admiration.

For Virginia received the coronet, which is the reward of all good little American girls

, and was married to her boy-lover as soon as he came of age.

“Please don’t ask me, Cecil, I cannot tell you. Poor Sir Simon! I owe him a great deal. Yes, don’t laugh, Cecil, I really do.

He made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is stronger than both.

”

“

I cannot love where I cannot trust,

” he replied.

“My dear Gerald,” I answered, “Lady Alroy was simply a woman with a mania for mystery. She took these rooms for the pleasure of going there with her veil down, and imagining she was a heroine.

She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.

”

Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed.

The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never realised. Poor Hughie! Intellectually, we must admit, he was not of much importance.

He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had been a tea-merchant for a little longer, but had soon tired of pekoe and souchong.

Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry.

Ultimately he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession.

He had been a tea-merchant for a little longer, but had soon tired of pekoe and souchong. Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry.

Ultimately he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession.

To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his temper and his digestion in India, and had never found either of them again.

Hughie hung the first over his looking-glass, put the second on a shelf between Ruff’s Guide and Bailey’s Magazine, and lived on two hundred a year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything.

He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears?

He had been a tea-merchant for a little longer, but had soon tired of pekoe and souchong. Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry.

“The only people a painter should know,” he used to say, “are people who are bête and beautiful, people who are an artistic pleasure to look at and an intellectual repose to talk to.

Men who are dandies and women who are darlings rule the world, at least they should do so.

” However, after he got to know Hughie better, he liked him quite as much for his bright, buoyant spirits and his generous, reckless nature, and had given him the permanent entrée to his studio.

“Guineas.

Painters, poets, and physicians always get guineas.

”

“But he looks splendid in them,” said Trevor. “I wouldn’t paint him in a frock coat for anything.

What you call rags I call romance. What seems poverty to you is picturesqueness to me.

However, I’ll tell him of your offer.”

“

An artist’s heart is his head,

” replied Trevor; “and besides, our business is to realise the world as we see it, not to reform it as we know it. À chacun son métier. And now tell me how Laura is. The old model was quite interested in her.”

When they were married Alan Trevor was the best man, and the Baron made a speech at the wedding breakfast.

“Millionaire models,” remarked Alan, “are rare enough; but, by Jove, model millionaires are rarer still!”

It was due, I think, chiefly to his inordinate desire to please. Poor Cyril! I told him once that he was contented with very cheap triumphs, but he only laughed. He was horribly spoiled.

All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

“However, I must tell you about Cyril’s acting. You know that no actresses are allowed to play at the A.D.C. At least they were not in my time. I don’t know how it is now.

He was, of course, wild to go on the stage. It was all that I and Lord Crediton could do to prevent him. Perhaps if he had gone on the stage he would be alive now.

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.

I hope you will never fall into that error. If you do, you will be sorry for it.

Erskine looked at me in amazement. “You are carried away by the sentiment of the whole story,” he said. “

You forget that a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

I was devoted to Cyril Graham. His death was a horrible blow to me. I did not recover it for years. I don’t think I have ever recovered it. But Willie Hughes? There is nothing in the idea of Willie Hughes.