feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_2_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 4
feat_summary_id: chapter 4
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421171214/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/study-guide/summary-chapter-4", "summary": "A month later, Dorian pays a visit to Henry, finding his wife at home. She is pleased to meet the man with whom her husband has become so preoccupied. After Dorian's comment that one is obligated to engage in conversation when bad music is being performed, she remarks that \"that is one of Harry's views...I always hear Harry's views from his friends, that is the only way I get to know them.\" Henry arrives, and his wife exits. Henry tells Dorian never to marry a woman as sentimental as his wife, a trait which he blames on the fairness of her hair. Dorian delivers the news that he has come to share: he is in love with a girl named Sibyl Vane. She is an actress who plays all of the young leading female roles at a theater devoted solely to Shakespeare's works. The theater and the rest of the cast are of very poor quality, but Sibyl is apparently a brilliant actress and stunningly beautiful. Dorian went backstage to meet her after the third performance he had attended, and found her to be completely unaware of her own skill, seemingly unable to separate real life from that of the stage. He tells Henry that she prefers to call him \"Prince Charming,\" because, as Dorian says, \"She regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life.\" This purity and naivete is indescribably charming to Dorian: he has fallen madly in love, and tells Henry that he worships Sibyl and that she is the only thing that matters to him. Dorian convinces Henry to come with him to see her play Juliet in the next day's production. Henry says that he will invite Basil. At the mention of the painter's name, Dorian remarks that he feels guilty for having ignored the painter for several weeks, since he appreciates the masterful portrait despite being \"a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am.\" The conversation turns towards the character of artists, and Henry insists that the better the artist, the duller his personality, and that only truly terrible artists are worth spending time with. Dorian eventually takes his leave. Later that night, Henry returns home to find a telegram from Dorian informing him that he and Sibyl are engaged to be married.", "analysis": "This chapter describes a key moment in the development of Dorian's personality.  Henry is not jealous of Dorian's fascination with another person, but pays careful attention to Dorian's impression of his own emotional state.  Recognizing his influence at work on the boy brings \"a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes\"; he is like an artist proudly admiring his work.  Henry's views are elucidated by the statement that \"a complex personality...was indeed, in its way, a real work of art.\"  Henry's beliefs are delivered in the voice of the narrator; this technique, called \"free indirect discourse\", is one that Wilde frequently used. The nature of Dorian's love reflects Henry's devotion to life as art.  Sibyl is described as almost completely devoid of her own personality, and only able to behave as if she is in a play.  Dorian is in love with the characters she plays, with her talent, and with her beauty, but not with her.  He values everything superficial about her, as is revealed when she tries to show her true self to him. Early in their conversation, after telling Henry how much he treasures his words and trusts his judgment, Dorian states, \"If ever I did a crime I would confess it to you.  You would understand me.\"  This boldly foreshadows later events in the novel, and is also an indication of the commencement of Dorian's degradation.  The young man that was innocent and good-hearted only a month before now freely considers criminal actions for the sake of having a new sensation, without giving a single thought to the possibility of a guilty conscience. Dorian criticizes Sibyl for treating him like a person in a play, but is blind to the fact that he has fallen in love with the characters she plays, and hardly even knows the girl herself.  Dorian has begun to whole-heartedly devote himself to artistic ideals, mistakenly assuming that they are his reality.  Indeed, when Sibyl begins to show a glimmer of the person behind her characters, Dorian's reaction is not very pleasant.  Earlier, however, he doesn't even hesitate to propose to a girl he hardly knows; a testament to his misguided devotion to artistry and artifice. Henry realizes the error of Dorian's ways, but instead of pointing them out for the sake of his friend's well-being, he anticipates the fun he will have observing the repercussions. Dorian's blossoming self-centeredness is a successful manifestation of Henry's influence.  Interestingly, this is the first chapter in which Dorian actually has more dialogue than Henry. Until this point, we have witnessed Dorian's reactions only through Henry's eyes, and through narrative comments.  Dorian only actually begins to take the spotlight once his corruption is underway."}
text: 
  One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious
  arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair.  It
  was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled
  wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling
  of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,
  long-fringed Persian rugs.  On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette
  by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for
  Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies
  that Queen had selected for her device.  Some large blue china jars and
  parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small
  leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a
  summer day in London.
  
  Lord Henry had not yet come in.  He was always late on principle, his
  principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.  So the lad was
  looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages
  of an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had
  found in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the
  Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him.  Once or twice he thought of going
  away.
  
  At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened.  "How late you
  are, Harry!" he murmured.
  
  "I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," answered a shrill voice.
  
  He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet.  "I beg your pardon.  I
  thought--"
  
  "You thought it was my husband.  It is only his wife.  You must let me
  introduce myself.  I know you quite well by your photographs.  I think
  my husband has got seventeen of them."
  
  "Not seventeen, Lady Henry?"
  
  "Well, eighteen, then.  And I saw you with him the other night at the
  opera."  She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her
  vague forget-me-not eyes.  She was a curious woman, whose dresses
  always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a
  tempest.  She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion
  was never returned, she had kept all her illusions.  She tried to look
  picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.  Her name was
  Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.
  
  "That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?"
  
  "Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin.  I like Wagner's music better than
  anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other
  people hearing what one says.  That is a great advantage, don't you
  think so, Mr. Gray?"
  
  The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her
  fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.
  
  Dorian smiled and shook his head:  "I am afraid I don't think so, Lady
  Henry.  I never talk during music--at least, during good music.  If one
  hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation."
  
  "Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray?  I always hear
  Harry's views from his friends.  It is the only way I get to know of
  them.  But you must not think I don't like good music.  I adore it, but
  I am afraid of it.  It makes me too romantic.  I have simply worshipped
  pianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me.  I don't know what
  it is about them.  Perhaps it is that they are foreigners.  They all
  are, ain't they?  Even those that are born in England become foreigners
  after a time, don't they?  It is so clever of them, and such a
  compliment to art.  Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it?  You have
  never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray?  You must come.  I
  can't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners.  They make
  one's rooms look so picturesque.  But here is Harry!  Harry, I came in
  to look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I
  found Mr. Gray here.  We have had such a pleasant chat about music.  We
  have quite the same ideas.  No; I think our ideas are quite different.
  But he has been most pleasant.  I am so glad I've seen him."
  
  "I am charmed, my love, quite charmed," said Lord Henry, elevating his
  dark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused
  smile.  "So sorry I am late, Dorian.  I went to look after a piece of
  old brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.
  Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
  
  "I am afraid I must be going," exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an
  awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh.  "I have promised to drive
  with the duchess.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Good-bye, Harry.  You are
  dining out, I suppose?  So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady
  Thornbury's."
  
  "I dare say, my dear," said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her
  as, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the
  rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of
  frangipanni.  Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the
  sofa.
  
  "Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian," he said after a
  few puffs.
  
  "Why, Harry?"
  
  "Because they are so sentimental."
  
  "But I like sentimental people."
  
  "Never marry at all, Dorian.  Men marry because they are tired; women,
  because they are curious:  both are disappointed."
  
  "I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry.  I am too much in love.
  That is one of your aphorisms.  I am putting it into practice, as I do
  everything that you say."
  
  "Who are you in love with?" asked Lord Henry after a pause.
  
  "With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing.
  
  Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "That is a rather commonplace
  _debut_."
  
  "You would not say so if you saw her, Harry."
  
  "Who is she?"
  
  "Her name is Sibyl Vane."
  
  "Never heard of her."
  
  "No one has.  People will some day, however.  She is a genius."
  
  "My dear boy, no woman is a genius.  Women are a decorative sex.  They
  never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.  Women
  represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the
  triumph of mind over morals."
  
  "Harry, how can you?"
  
  "My dear Dorian, it is quite true.  I am analysing women at present, so
  I ought to know.  The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.
  I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain
  and the coloured.  The plain women are very useful.  If you want to
  gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down
  to supper.  The other women are very charming.  They commit one
  mistake, however.  They paint in order to try and look young.  Our
  grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.  _Rouge_ and
  _esprit_ used to go together.  That is all over now.  As long as a woman
  can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly
  satisfied.  As for conversation, there are only five women in London
  worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent
  society.  However, tell me about your genius.  How long have you known
  her?"
  
  "Ah!  Harry, your views terrify me."
  
  "Never mind that.  How long have you known her?"
  
  "About three weeks."
  
  "And where did you come across her?"
  
  "I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.
  After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.  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....
  Well, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search
  of some adventure.  I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,
  with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,
  as you once phrased it, 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 evening when we
  first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real 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.  About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little
  theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.  A hideous
  Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was
  standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.  He had greasy
  ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled
  shirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off
  his hat with an air of gorgeous servility.  There was something about
  him, Harry, that amused me.  He was such a monster.  You will laugh at
  me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the
  stage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if
  I hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest
  romance of my life.  I see you are laughing.  It is horrid of you!"
  
  "I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.  But you
  should not say the greatest romance of your life.  You should say the
  first romance of your life.  You will always be loved, and you will
  always be in love with love.  A _grande passion_ is the privilege of
  people who have nothing to do.  That is the one use of the idle classes
  of a country.  Don't be afraid.  There are exquisite things in store
  for you.  This is merely the beginning."
  
  "Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily.
  
  "No; I think your nature so deep."
  
  "How do you mean?"
  
  "My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really
  the shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,
  I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
  Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life
  of the intellect--simply a confession of failure.  Faithfulness!  I
  must analyse it some day.  The passion for property is in it.  There
  are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that
  others might pick them up.  But I don't want to interrupt you.  Go on
  with your story."
  
  "Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a
  vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.  I looked out from behind the
  curtain and surveyed the house.  It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and
  cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were
  fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and
  there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the
  dress-circle.  Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there
  was a terrible consumption of nuts going on."
  
  "It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama."
  
  "Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.  I began to wonder
  what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill.  What
  do you think the play was, Harry?"
  
  "I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'.  Our fathers
  used to like that sort of piece, I believe.  The longer I live, Dorian,
  the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is
  not good enough for us.  In art, as in politics, _les grandperes ont
  toujours tort_."
  
  "This play was good enough for us, Harry.  It was Romeo and Juliet.  I
  must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare
  done in such a wretched hole of a place.  Still, I felt interested, in
  a sort of way.  At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.
  There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat
  at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the
  drop-scene was drawn up and the play began.  Romeo was a stout elderly
  gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure
  like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad.  He was played by the
  low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most
  friendly terms with the pit.  They were both as grotesque as the
  scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But
  Juliet!  Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a
  little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of
  dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were
  like the petals of a rose.  She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen
  in my life.  You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that
  beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.  I tell you,
  Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came
  across me.  And her voice--I never heard such a voice.  It was very low
  at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's
  ear.  Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a
  distant hautboy.  In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy
  that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.  There
  were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins.  You
  know how a voice can stir one.  Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane
  are two things that I shall never forget.  When I close my eyes, I hear
  them, and each of them says something different.  I don't know which to
  follow.  Why should I not love her?  Harry, I do love her.  She is
  everything to me in life.  Night after night I go to see her play.  One
  evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen.  I have
  seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from
  her lover's lips.  I have watched her wandering through the forest of
  Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.
  She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and
  given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of.  She has been
  innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike
  throat.  I have seen her in every age and in every costume.  Ordinary
  women never appeal to one's imagination.  They are limited to their
  century.  No glamour ever transfigures them.  One knows their minds as
  easily as one knows their bonnets.  One can always find them.  There is
  no mystery in any of them.  They ride in the park in the morning and
  chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon.  They have their stereotyped
  smile and their fashionable manner.  They are quite obvious.  But an
  actress!  How different an actress is!  Harry! why didn't you tell me
  that the only thing worth loving is an actress?"
  
  "Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian."
  
  "Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces."
  
  "Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces.  There is an extraordinary
  charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry.
  
  "I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane."
  
  "You could not have helped telling me, Dorian.  All through your life
  you will tell me everything you do."
  
  "Yes, Harry, I believe that is true.  I cannot help telling you things.
  You have a curious influence over me.  If I ever did a crime, I would
  come and confess it to you.  You would understand me."
  
  "People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,
  Dorian.  But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same.  And
  now tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are
  your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?"
  
  Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.
  "Harry!  Sibyl Vane is sacred!"
  
  "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian," said
  Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.  "But why
  should you be annoyed?  I suppose she will belong to you some day.
  When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one
  always ends by deceiving others.  That is what the world calls a
  romance.  You know her, at any rate, I suppose?"
  
  "Of course I know her.  On the first night I was at the theatre, the
  horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and
  offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.  I was
  furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds
  of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona.  I
  think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the
  impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something."
  
  "I am not surprised."
  
  "Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers.  I told him I
  never even read them.  He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and
  confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy
  against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought."
  
  "I should not wonder if he was quite right there.  But, on the other
  hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all
  expensive."
  
  "Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian.
  "By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,
  and I had to go.  He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly
  recommended.  I declined.  The next night, of course, I arrived at the
  place again.  When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that
  I was a munificent patron of art.  He was a most offensive brute,
  though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare.  He told me
  once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely
  due to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him.  He seemed to think
  it a distinction."
  
  "It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction.  Most
  people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose
  of life.  To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.  But when
  did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?"
  
  "The third night.  She had been playing Rosalind.  I could not help
  going round.  I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at
  me--at least I fancied that she had.  The old Jew was persistent.  He
  seemed determined to take me behind, so I consented.  It was curious my
  not wanting to know her, wasn't it?"
  
  "No; I don't think so."
  
  "My dear Harry, why?"
  
  "I will tell you some other time.  Now I want to know about the girl."
  
  "Sibyl?  Oh, she was so shy and so gentle.  There is something of a
  child about her.  Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told
  her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious
  of her power.  I think we were both rather nervous.  The old Jew stood
  grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate
  speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like
  children.  He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure
  Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind.  She said quite simply to
  me, 'You look more like a prince.  I must call you Prince Charming.'"
  
  "Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments."
  
  "You don't understand her, Harry.  She regarded me merely as a person
  in a play.  She knows nothing of life.  She lives with her mother, a
  faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta
  dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen
  better days."
  
  "I know that look.  It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, examining
  his rings.
  
  "The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest
  me."
  
  "You were quite right.  There is always something infinitely mean about
  other people's tragedies."
  
  "Sibyl is the only thing I care about.  What is it to me where she came
  from?  From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and
  entirely divine.  Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every
  night she is more marvellous."
  
  "That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now.  I
  thought you must have some curious romance on hand.  You have; but it
  is not quite what I expected."
  
  "My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have
  been to the opera with you several times," said Dorian, opening his
  blue eyes in wonder.
  
  "You always come dreadfully late."
  
  "Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play," he cried, "even if it is
  only for a single act.  I get hungry for her presence; and when I think
  of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I
  am filled with awe."
  
  "You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?"
  
  He shook his head.  "To-night she is Imogen," he answered, "and
  to-morrow night she will be Juliet."
  
  "When is she Sibyl Vane?"
  
  "Never."
  
  "I congratulate you."
  
  "How horrid you are!  She is all the great heroines of the world in
  one.  She is more than an individual.  You laugh, but I tell you she
  has genius.  I love her, and I must make her love me.  You, who know
  all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me!  I
  want to make Romeo jealous.  I want the dead lovers of the world to
  hear our laughter and grow sad.  I want a breath of our passion to stir
  their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.  My God,
  Harry, how I worship her!"  He was walking up and down the room as he
  spoke.  Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks.  He was terribly
  excited.
  
  Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure.  How different
  he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's
  studio!  His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of
  scarlet flame.  Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and
  desire had come to meet it on the way.
  
  "And what do you propose to do?" said Lord Henry at last.
  
  "I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act.  I
  have not the slightest fear of the result.  You are certain to
  acknowledge her genius.  Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.
  She is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight
  months--from the present time.  I shall have to pay him something, of
  course.  When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and
  bring her out properly.  She will make the world as mad as she has made
  me."
  
  "That would be impossible, my dear boy."
  
  "Yes, she will.  She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in
  her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it
  is personalities, not principles, that move the age."
  
  "Well, what night shall we go?"
  
  "Let me see.  To-day is Tuesday.  Let us fix to-morrow. She plays
  Juliet to-morrow."
  
  "All right.  The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil."
  
  "Not eight, Harry, please.  Half-past six.  We must be there before the
  curtain rises.  You must see her in the first act, where she meets
  Romeo."
  
  "Half-past six!  What an hour!  It will be like having a meat-tea, or
  reading an English novel.  It must be seven.  No gentleman dines before
  seven.  Shall you see Basil between this and then?  Or shall I write to
  him?"
  
  "Dear Basil!  I have not laid eyes on him for a week.  It is rather
  horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful
  frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous
  of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit
  that I delight in it.  Perhaps you had better write to him.  I don't
  want to see him alone.  He says things that annoy me.  He gives me good
  advice."
  
  Lord Henry smiled.  "People are very fond of giving away what they need
  most themselves.  It is what I call the depth of generosity."
  
  "Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit
  of a Philistine.  Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered
  that."
  
  "Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his
  work.  The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his
  prejudices, his principles, and his common sense.  The only artists I
  have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists.  Good
  artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly
  uninteresting in what they are.  A great poet, a really great poet, is
  the most unpoetical of all creatures.  But inferior poets are
  absolutely fascinating.  The worse their rhymes are, the more
  picturesque they look.  The mere fact of having published a book of
  second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.  He lives the
  poetry that he cannot write.  The others write the poetry that they
  dare not realize."
  
  "I wonder is that really so, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, putting some
  perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that
  stood on the table.  "It must be, if you say it.  And now I am off.
  Imogen is waiting for me.  Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye."
  
  As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began
  to think.  Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as
  Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused
  him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy.  He was pleased by
  it.  It made him a more interesting study.  He had been always
  enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary
  subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no
  import.  And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by
  vivisecting others.  Human life--that appeared to him the one thing
  worth investigating.  Compared to it there was nothing else of any
  value.  It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of
  pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,
  nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the
  imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.  There
  were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken
  of them.  There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through
  them if one sought to understand their nature.  And, yet, what a great
  reward one received!  How wonderful the whole world became to one!  To
  note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life
  of the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated,
  at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at
  discord--there was a delight in that!  What matter what the cost was?
  One could never pay too high a price for any sensation.
  
  He was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his
  brown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical
  words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned
  to this white girl and bowed in worship before her.  To a large extent
  the lad was his own creation.  He had made him premature.  That was
  something.  Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its
  secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were
  revealed before the veil was drawn away.  Sometimes this was the effect
  of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately
  with the passions and the intellect.  But now and then a complex
  personality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,
  in its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,
  just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.
  
  Yes, the lad was premature.  He was gathering his harvest while it was
  yet spring.  The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was
  becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him.  With his
  beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.
  It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end.  He was like
  one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem
  to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,
  and whose wounds are like red roses.
  
  Soul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were!  There was
  animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.
  The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade.  Who could
  say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?
  How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!
  And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various
  schools!  Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin?  Or was the
  body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought?  The separation of
  spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter
  was a mystery also.
  
  He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a
  science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us.  As it
  was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.
  Experience was of no ethical value.  It was merely the name men gave to
  their mistakes.  Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of
  warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation
  of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow
  and showed us what to avoid.  But there was no motive power in
  experience.  It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.
  All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same
  as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we
  would do many times, and with joy.
  
  It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by
  which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and
  certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to
  promise rich and fruitful results.  His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane
  was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest.  There was no
  doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire
  for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex
  passion.  What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of
  boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,
  changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from
  sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.  It was the
  passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most
  strongly over us.  Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we
  were conscious.  It often happened that when we thought we were
  experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.
  
  While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the
  door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for
  dinner.  He got up and looked out into the street.  The sunset had
  smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.
  The panes glowed like plates of heated metal.  The sky above was like a
  faded rose.  He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and
  wondered how it was all going to end.
  
  When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram
  lying on the hall table.  He opened it and found it was from Dorian
  Gray.  It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl
  Vane.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 4
target: A month later, Dorian pays a visit to Henry, finding his wife at home. She is pleased to meet the man with whom her husband has become so preoccupied. After Dorian's comment that one is obligated to engage in conversation when bad music is being performed, she remarks that "that is one of Harry's views...I always hear Harry's views from his friends, that is the only way I get to know them." Henry arrives, and his wife exits. Henry tells Dorian never to marry a woman as sentimental as his wife, a trait which he blames on the fairness of her hair. Dorian delivers the news that he has come to share: he is in love with a girl named Sibyl Vane. She is an actress who plays all of the young leading female roles at a theater devoted solely to Shakespeare's works. The theater and the rest of the cast are of very poor quality, but Sibyl is apparently a brilliant actress and stunningly beautiful. Dorian went backstage to meet her after the third performance he had attended, and found her to be completely unaware of her own skill, seemingly unable to separate real life from that of the stage. He tells Henry that she prefers to call him "Prince Charming," because, as Dorian says, "She regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life." This purity and naivete is indescribably charming to Dorian: he has fallen madly in love, and tells Henry that he worships Sibyl and that she is the only thing that matters to him. Dorian convinces Henry to come with him to see her play Juliet in the next day's production. Henry says that he will invite Basil. At the mention of the painter's name, Dorian remarks that he feels guilty for having ignored the painter for several weeks, since he appreciates the masterful portrait despite being "a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am." The conversation turns towards the character of artists, and Henry insists that the better the artist, the duller his personality, and that only truly terrible artists are worth spending time with. Dorian eventually takes his leave. Later that night, Henry returns home to find a telegram from Dorian informing him that he and Sibyl are engaged to be married.
feat_summary_analysis: This chapter describes a key moment in the development of Dorian's personality.  Henry is not jealous of Dorian's fascination with another person, but pays careful attention to Dorian's impression of his own emotional state.  Recognizing his influence at work on the boy brings "a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes"; he is like an artist proudly admiring his work.  Henry's views are elucidated by the statement that "a complex personality...was indeed, in its way, a real work of art."  Henry's beliefs are delivered in the voice of the narrator; this technique, called "free indirect discourse", is one that Wilde frequently used. The nature of Dorian's love reflects Henry's devotion to life as art.  Sibyl is described as almost completely devoid of her own personality, and only able to behave as if she is in a play.  Dorian is in love with the characters she plays, with her talent, and with her beauty, but not with her.  He values everything superficial about her, as is revealed when she tries to show her true self to him. Early in their conversation, after telling Henry how much he treasures his words and trusts his judgment, Dorian states, "If ever I did a crime I would confess it to you.  You would understand me."  This boldly foreshadows later events in the novel, and is also an indication of the commencement of Dorian's degradation.  The young man that was innocent and good-hearted only a month before now freely considers criminal actions for the sake of having a new sensation, without giving a single thought to the possibility of a guilty conscience. Dorian criticizes Sibyl for treating him like a person in a play, but is blind to the fact that he has fallen in love with the characters she plays, and hardly even knows the girl herself.  Dorian has begun to whole-heartedly devote himself to artistic ideals, mistakenly assuming that they are his reality.  Indeed, when Sibyl begins to show a glimmer of the person behind her characters, Dorian's reaction is not very pleasant.  Earlier, however, he doesn't even hesitate to propose to a girl he hardly knows; a testament to his misguided devotion to artistry and artifice. Henry realizes the error of Dorian's ways, but instead of pointing them out for the sake of his friend's well-being, he anticipates the fun he will have observing the repercussions. Dorian's blossoming self-centeredness is a successful manifestation of Henry's influence.  Interestingly, this is the first chapter in which Dorian actually has more dialogue than Henry. Until this point, we have witnessed Dorian's reactions only through Henry's eyes, and through narrative comments.  Dorian only actually begins to take the spotlight once his corruption is underway.