At half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was considered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him. His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a capricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his father\u2019s secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months later to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. He had two large town houses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and took most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention to the management of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. In politics he was a Tory, except when the Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.<\/p>\n
When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over The Times<\/i>. \u201cWell, Harry,\u201d said the old gentleman, \u201cwhat brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get something out of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMoney, I suppose,\u201d said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. \u201cWell, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; \u201cand when they grow older they know it. But I don\u2019t want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor\u2019s tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George,\u201d said Lord Henry languidly.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?\u201d asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso\u2019s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKelso\u2019s grandson!\u201d echoed the old gentleman. \u201cKelso\u2019s grandson! … Of course…. I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow\u2014a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law in public\u2014paid him, sir, to do it, paid him\u2014and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he must be a good-looking chap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is very good-looking,\u201d assented Lord Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope he will fall into proper hands,\u201d continued the old man. \u201cHe should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didn\u2019t dare show my face at Court for a month. I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d answered Lord Henry. \u201cI fancy that the boy will be well off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so. And … his mother was very beautiful?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMargaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, Harry. What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could understand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was mad after her. She was romantic, though. All the women of that family were. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful. Carlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed at him, and there wasn\u2019t a girl in London at the time who wasn\u2019t after him. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an American? Ain\u2019t English girls good enough for him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll back English women against the world, Harry,\u201d said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe betting is on the Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t last, I am told,\u201d muttered his uncle.<\/p>\n
\u201cA long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. They take things flying. I don\u2019t think Dartmoor has a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are her people?\u201d grumbled the old gentleman. \u201cHas she got any?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lord Henry shook his head. \u201cAmerican girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past,\u201d he said, rising to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are pork-packers, I suppose?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor\u2019s sake. I am told that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs she pretty?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy can\u2019t these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it,\u201d said Lord Henry. \u201cGood-bye, Uncle George. I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer. Thanks for giving me the information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you lunching, Harry?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Aunt Agatha\u2019s. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her latest prot\u00e9g\u00e9<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHumph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with her charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman thinks that I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right, Uncle George, I\u2019ll tell her, but it won\u2019t have any effect. Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his servant. Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street and turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.<\/p>\n
So that was the story of Dorian Gray\u2019s parentage. Crudely as it had been told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a strange, almost modern romance. A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes; it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow…. And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer rose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow…. There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one\u2019s soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one\u2019s own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one\u2019s temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that\u2014perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims…. He was a marvellous type, too, this lad, whom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil\u2019s studio, or could be fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for us. There was nothing that one could not do with him. He could be made a Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was destined to fade! … And Basil? From a psychological point of view, how interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence of one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was! He remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it? Was it not Buonarotti who had carved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own century it was strange…. Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him\u2014had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of love and death.<\/p>\n
Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had passed his aunt\u2019s some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and passed into the dining-room.<\/p>\n
\u201cLate as usual, Harry,\u201d cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.<\/p>\n
He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed to him shyly from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample architectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are described by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat, on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who followed his leader in public life and in private life followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in accordance with a wise and well-known rule. The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, one of his aunt\u2019s oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book. Fortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement in the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely earnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of them ever quite escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry,\u201d cried the duchess, nodding pleasantly to him across the table. \u201cDo you think he will really marry this fascinating young person?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow dreadful!\u201d exclaimed Lady Agatha. \u201cReally, some one should interfere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American dry-goods store,\u201d said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDry-goods! What are American dry-goods?\u201d asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican novels,\u201d answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.<\/p>\n
The duchess looked puzzled.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t mind him, my dear,\u201d whispered Lady Agatha. \u201cHe never means anything that he says.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen America was discovered,\u201d said the Radical member\u2014and he began to give some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. The duchess sighed and exercised her privilege of interruption. \u201cI wish to goodness it never had been discovered at all!\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cReally, our girls have no chance nowadays. It is most unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps, after all, America never has been discovered,\u201d said Mr. Erskine; \u201cI myself would say that it had merely been detected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants,\u201d answered the duchess vaguely. \u201cI must confess that most of them are extremely pretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in Paris. I wish I could afford to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say that when good Americans die they go to Paris,\u201d chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour\u2019s cast-off clothes.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?\u201d inquired the duchess.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey go to America,\u201d murmured Lord Henry.<\/p>\n
Sir Thomas frowned. \u201cI am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced against that great country,\u201d he said to Lady Agatha. \u201cI have travelled all over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters, are extremely civil. I assure you that it is an education to visit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?\u201d asked Mr. Erskine plaintively. \u201cI don\u2019t feel up to the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sir Thomas waved his hand. \u201cMr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about them. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow dreadful!\u201d cried Lord Henry. \u201cI can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not understand you,\u201d said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do, Lord Henry,\u201d murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cParadoxes are all very well in their way….\u201d rejoined the baronet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas that a paradox?\u201d asked Mr. Erskine. \u201cI did not think so. Perhaps it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDear me!\u201d said Lady Agatha, \u201chow you men argue! I am sure I never can make out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite 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 be quite invaluable. They would love his playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want him to play to me,\u201d cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked down the table and caught a bright answering glance.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,\u201d continued Lady Agatha.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can sympathize with everything except suffering,\u201d said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. \u201cI cannot sympathize with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life\u2019s sores, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStill, the East End is a very important problem,\u201d remarked Sir Thomas with a grave shake of the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuite so,\u201d answered the young lord. \u201cIt is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The politician looked at him keenly. \u201cWhat change do you propose, then?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Lord Henry laughed. \u201cI don\u2019t desire to change anything in England except the weather,\u201d he answered. \u201cI am quite content with philosophic contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we have such grave responsibilities,\u201d ventured Mrs. Vandeleur timidly.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerribly grave,\u201d echoed Lady Agatha.<\/p>\n
Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. \u201cHumanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world\u2019s original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are really very comforting,\u201d warbled the duchess. \u201cI have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to look her in the face without a blush.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA blush is very becoming, Duchess,\u201d remarked Lord Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly when one is young,\u201d she answered. \u201cWhen an old woman like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell me how to become young again.\u201d<\/p>\n
He thought for a moment. \u201cCan you remember any great error that you committed in your early days, Duchess?\u201d he asked, looking at her across the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great many, I fear,\u201d she cried.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen commit them over again,\u201d he said gravely. \u201cTo get back one\u2019s youth, one has merely to repeat one\u2019s follies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA delightful theory!\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cI must put it into practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA dangerous theory!\u201d came from Sir Thomas\u2019s tight lips. Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he continued, \u201cthat is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one\u2019s mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
A laugh ran round the table.<\/p>\n
He played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat\u2019s black, dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.<\/p>\n
At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. \u201cHow annoying!\u201d she cried. \u201cI must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting at Willis\u2019s Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn\u2019t have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don\u2019t know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor you I would throw over anybody, Duchess,\u201d said Lord Henry with a bow.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh! that is very nice, and very wrong of you,\u201d she cried; \u201cso mind you come\u201d; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the other ladies.<\/p>\n
When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou talk books away,\u201d he said; \u201cwhy don\u2019t you write one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public in England for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of literature.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI fear you are right,\u201d answered Mr. Erskine. \u201cI myself used to have literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And 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 us at lunch?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI quite forget what I said,\u201d smiled Lord Henry. \u201cWas it all very bad?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVery bad indeed. In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life. The generation into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you are tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate enough to possess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege. It has a perfect host, and a perfect library.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will complete it,\u201d answered the old gentleman with a courteous bow. \u201cAnd now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due at the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of you, Mr. Erskine?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cForty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English Academy of Letters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lord Henry laughed and rose. \u201cI am going to the park,\u201d he cried.<\/p>\n
As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. \u201cLet me come with you,\u201d he murmured.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,\u201d answered Lord Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks so wonderfully as you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAh! I have talked quite enough for to-day,\u201d said Lord Henry, smiling. \u201cAll I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-25","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/25\/revisions\/168"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/25\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}