2009-03-09
the poisonous secret of life
You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.
As I lounged in the Park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who passed me, and wonder with a mad curiosity what sort of lives they led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations. One evening about seven o'clock I determined to go out in search of some adventure. I felt that this gray, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its splendid sinners, and its sordid sins, as you once said, must have something in store for me.
I fancied a thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful night when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the poisonous secret of life. I don't know what I expected, but i went out, and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black, grassless squares.
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey
leesah-likes at 4:29 p.m.