[Vwoolf] "Conscience is trade-name of the firm" : What is this a reference to, in Dorian Gray?

[Stuart N. Clarke]

“conscience doth make cowards of us all” –  in Hamlet’s famous soliloquy in Act III, sc. 1.

Stuart

From: Sunjoo Lee 
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2017 10:07 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu 
Subject: [Vwoolf] "Conscience is trade-name of the firm" : What is this a reference to, in Dorian Gray?

Dear Woolfians, 



In Chapter 1 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry says this to Basil: 

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all." 



In a French edition from folio, the line was translated as: 

"La conscience et la lâcheté sont une seule et même chose, Basil. La conscience est la raison sociale de la firme. C'est tout." 



This translation makes me thinking: Did Wilde really mean to say something like "Conscience is a name of a company"? 

Or, with the definite articles, "Conscience is that name of the company, which everybody used to know"? But, what could this mean? 



I had thought, with "firm," Wilde had qualities of one's character, something in the line of "headstrong," inflexible in moral judgments. 



I somehow really got curious to know about the (possible) reference of this line. Would someone let me know? 







Best, 

Sunjoo 



     



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Vwoolf mailing list
Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/vwoolf/attachments/20170616/a2e527fa/attachment.html>