finished_summaries/shmoop/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_3_part_0.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 4
chapter 4
{"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210304030722/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/picture-dorian-gray/summary/chapter-4", "summary": "A month later, we find Dorian hanging out alone at Lord Henry's house in Mayfair, a ritzy London neighborhood. He's waiting for Lord Henry, who's always late. For the first time, Dorian encounters the other Wotton--Lord Henry's shrill wife, Victoria. Lady Victoria is a totally ridiculous creature; she tries to be stylish, but just ends up looking foolish. Unlike her husband, she has no appreciation for art, or any of the finer things in life; instead, she's totally shallow. Fortunately, Lord Henry arrives to save Dorian from his wife. Once she's gone, Henry tells Dorian never to get married . Dorian tells Henry that he'll never get married--after all, he's too much in love. This is big news. Henry wants to know all the details, and Dorian obliges. Dorian's flame is an actress named Sibyl Vane--he claims she's a genius, even though Henry says irritatingly that women can't be geniuses. Ignoring Henry's misogyny, Dorian goes on with his story. He first discovered Sibyl three weeks ago; it actually all started with Lord Henry himself, who got Dorian thinking about all the different people out there in London, whose lives all fascinated the boy all of a sudden. As he was wandering around the city one day, he stumbled upon a sketchy little theatre, where a Jewish manager lures him inside. There, he finds what he calls \"the greatest romance of life.\" Here, Henry interjects--Dorian's too young to identify this relationship in such hyperbolic terms, and should remember that he'll always be loved, and that this is just the beginning. Only loving one person is simply too dull for Henry, and he thinks the same is true for Dorian. Dorian continues. In the tacky, dingy theatre, he discovers that the play is Romeo and Juliet. The actors, for the most part, are miserable, unattractive, and untalented. However, Juliet is a different story. The actress playing her is the most beautiful thing Dorian has ever seen--she's just seventeen, and she's so beautiful it brings tears to Dorian's eyes. Her voice is so thrilling it even gives Lord Henry's gorgeous pipes a run for their money. Sibyl Vane totally fascinates Dorian, and he's amazed by how she changes into a different person with every role she plays. He raves over how great it is to be in love with an actress. Lord Henry immediately shoots him down cynically, asking what exactly the deal is between Dorian and Sibyl. To put it bluntly, are they getting it on? Dorian is appalled at his friend's crudity, and exclaims that Sibyl is sacred--again, Henry doesn't buy this argument. Back to the story--after the play is over, the manager tries to convince Dorian to come backstage and meet Sibyl, but he refuses. Dorian returns to the theatre the next night, and the next. Finally, he feels ready to go and meet her. In real life, Sibyl is a complete innocent; she doesn't even realize how talented she is. She falls for Dorian immediately, and dubs him \"Prince Charming.\" We find out that every night since then, Dorian has gone to see Sibyl act. Henry peevishly comments that this explains why Dorian hasn't been paying him enough attention recently . Henry asks Dorian to dinner, but instead, Dorian insists that he has to go see Sibyl perform again. Dorian is in a fit of excitement--Henry notices that something has blossomed within his young friend. Dorian asks Henry to come to the theatre with Basil one night to see Sibyl. He intends to rescue her from the dreadful place she's performing in, and set her up at a posh theatre in the West End . The friends set their dinner and theatre date for the next day, then digress slightly to talk of Basil--ever since he's been chilling with Henry, Dorian finds Basil a little lacking. Dorian rushes off to the theatre in a tizzy, and Henry stays at home, pondering the wonders of human nature... specifically Dorian's. He muses that Dorian is really his creation, since Henry's influence made the boy what he is now. Henry goes on to coldly evaluate his \"experiment\" with Dorian's personality--there's something rather chilling in the way Henry looks at Dorian as a kind of lab rat, through whom he's trying to figure out the workings of the human soul and body. Finally, Henry gets ready to go out for the evening; as he leaves, he thinks again about Dorian's splendid life, and wonders ominously how it will end. When Henry gets home that night, he finds a telegram with the news that Dorian and Sibyl are engaged.", "analysis": ""}

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.



Chapter 4
A month later, we find Dorian hanging out alone at Lord Henry's house in Mayfair, a ritzy London neighborhood. He's waiting for Lord Henry, who's always late. For the first time, Dorian encounters the other Wotton--Lord Henry's shrill wife, Victoria. Lady Victoria is a totally ridiculous creature; she tries to be stylish, but just ends up looking foolish. Unlike her husband, she has no appreciation for art, or any of the finer things in life; instead, she's totally shallow. Fortunately, Lord Henry arrives to save Dorian from his wife. Once she's gone, Henry tells Dorian never to get married . Dorian tells Henry that he'll never get married--after all, he's too much in love. This is big news. Henry wants to know all the details, and Dorian obliges. Dorian's flame is an actress named Sibyl Vane--he claims she's a genius, even though Henry says irritatingly that women can't be geniuses. Ignoring Henry's misogyny, Dorian goes on with his story. He first discovered Sibyl three weeks ago; it actually all started with Lord Henry himself, who got Dorian thinking about all the different people out there in London, whose lives all fascinated the boy all of a sudden. As he was wandering around the city one day, he stumbled upon a sketchy little theatre, where a Jewish manager lures him inside. There, he finds what he calls "the greatest romance of life." Here, Henry interjects--Dorian's too young to identify this relationship in such hyperbolic terms, and should remember that he'll always be loved, and that this is just the beginning. Only loving one person is simply too dull for Henry, and he thinks the same is true for Dorian. Dorian continues. In the tacky, dingy theatre, he discovers that the play is Romeo and Juliet. The actors, for the most part, are miserable, unattractive, and untalented. However, Juliet is a different story. The actress playing her is the most beautiful thing Dorian has ever seen--she's just seventeen, and she's so beautiful it brings tears to Dorian's eyes. Her voice is so thrilling it even gives Lord Henry's gorgeous pipes a run for their money. Sibyl Vane totally fascinates Dorian, and he's amazed by how she changes into a different person with every role she plays. He raves over how great it is to be in love with an actress. Lord Henry immediately shoots him down cynically, asking what exactly the deal is between Dorian and Sibyl. To put it bluntly, are they getting it on? Dorian is appalled at his friend's crudity, and exclaims that Sibyl is sacred--again, Henry doesn't buy this argument. Back to the story--after the play is over, the manager tries to convince Dorian to come backstage and meet Sibyl, but he refuses. Dorian returns to the theatre the next night, and the next. Finally, he feels ready to go and meet her. In real life, Sibyl is a complete innocent; she doesn't even realize how talented she is. She falls for Dorian immediately, and dubs him "Prince Charming." We find out that every night since then, Dorian has gone to see Sibyl act. Henry peevishly comments that this explains why Dorian hasn't been paying him enough attention recently . Henry asks Dorian to dinner, but instead, Dorian insists that he has to go see Sibyl perform again. Dorian is in a fit of excitement--Henry notices that something has blossomed within his young friend. Dorian asks Henry to come to the theatre with Basil one night to see Sibyl. He intends to rescue her from the dreadful place she's performing in, and set her up at a posh theatre in the West End . The friends set their dinner and theatre date for the next day, then digress slightly to talk of Basil--ever since he's been chilling with Henry, Dorian finds Basil a little lacking. Dorian rushes off to the theatre in a tizzy, and Henry stays at home, pondering the wonders of human nature... specifically Dorian's. He muses that Dorian is really his creation, since Henry's influence made the boy what he is now. Henry goes on to coldly evaluate his "experiment" with Dorian's personality--there's something rather chilling in the way Henry looks at Dorian as a kind of lab rat, through whom he's trying to figure out the workings of the human soul and body. Finally, Henry gets ready to go out for the evening; as he leaves, he thinks again about Dorian's splendid life, and wonders ominously how it will end. When Henry gets home that night, he finds a telegram with the news that Dorian and Sibyl are engaged.