“What sort of ways, Basil?”

“Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in⁠ ⁠… well, in the consciousness of degradation.”

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. “My dear fellow, medieval art is charming, but medieval emotions are out of date. One can use them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.”

“I know what pleasure is,” cried Dorian Gray. “It is to adore someone.”

“That is certainly better than being adored,” he answered, toying with some fruits. “Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something for them.”