finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_1_part_0.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 1
chapter 1
{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-1", "summary": "The Picture of Dorian Gray opens in the London studio of Basil Hallward, an artist. With him, reclining and smoking a cigarette, is Lord Henry \"Harry\" Wotton. Basil is finishing painting a portrait of \"a young man of extraordinary personal beauty.\" Lord Henry praises the portrait as the best work that Basil has done and insists that it must be shown at a suitable gallery. To Lord Henry's surprise, Basil states that he will not show it anywhere: \"I have put too much of myself in it.\" Basil tries to keep the painting's subject's identity a secret from Lord Henry, then accidentally discloses that the beautiful young man's name is Dorian Gray. Basil admits that he prefers to keep favorite people to himself, not even telling others their names because he feels he might lose a part of them. In fact, he has \"grown to love secrecy.\" Even when he takes a trip, he keeps the destination private, a revelation that becomes important later in the story. Lord Henry answers that he understands, but he is more interested in Basil's reason for not exhibiting the portrait. Basil responds that any painting done with true feeling reveals more of the artist than it does the subject. He fears that the painting will reveal the secret of his soul. Basil explains how he met Dorian at Lady Brandon's home. He felt terror upon first seeing Dorian because he sensed that the young man's personality was so powerful that it could absorb him. More important, Dorian inspires a fresh approach to art in Basil, allowing him to produce the best work of his professional life. Because Basil worries that the public will detect his personal and artistic idolatry of Gray, he will not exhibit the portrait. Echoing a basic tenet of Aestheticism, he suggests that an artist should create beautiful work for its own sake; art shouldn't mean anything. He dismisses artists and critics who see art as a means for biographical expression, and he refuses to have his work thought of in that way. When Lord Henry expresses his desire to meet Gray, Basil explains that he wants to keep Dorian and the painting hidden away so that neither Dorian nor the world will ever know about his \"curious artistic idolatry.\" Lord Henry suggests that Basil's feeling may pass and that he will eventually become indifferent to Dorian, but Basil disagrees. At that moment, the butler enters, announcing the arrival of Dorian, and Lord Henry laughs that they must meet now. Before entering the studio where Dorian is waiting, Basil asks Lord Henry not to influence or take away the person who inspires him as an artist.", "analysis": "Chapter 1 introduces two of the major characters of the book, and the reader learns a good deal about them. Basil is an artist of apparently independent means. He is secretive, and Wilde even mentions that Basil has disappeared without notice in the past. In addition, the distinctive toss of his head, the one that \"used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford,\" characterizes Basil as someone who is thought of as an odd, yet endearing, fellow. Although Basil claims to be independent, he is instantly overpowered by Dorian upon meeting him, becoming dependent on Dorian immediately as his muse, spirit, art, and life. Basil's attraction to Dorian seems to be both professional and personal. Dorian inspires Basil to a new vision of art, combining Greek perfection with Romantic passion. However, there is every implication of something more personal in the attraction. Basil is also a jealous person, wanting to keep Dorian from Lord Henry so that he can have Dorian all to himself. The other main character introduced in Chapter 1 is Lord Henry Wotton, a very intelligent, confident, manipulative man. He decadently smokes opium-tainted cigarettes and has a commanding presence no matter where he is or whom he socializes with. He is very judgmental and enjoys sounding profound. Like Wilde himself, Lord Henry often speaks in aphorisms. As he speaks with Basil, Lord Henry picks a daisy from the grass to examine it, later pulling the daisy apart, an act that symbolizes his role throughout the novel as a manipulator and destroyer of beauty for his own amusement. Although it may seem strange to categorize a painting as a character, Basil's portrait of Dorian plays such an important role in the book that the reader is actually introduced to the painting as if it were a character before meeting Dorian himself. Perhaps Wilde is indicating that Dorian's reputation for physical beauty precedes him and is more important to his character than any other attribute. In any case, the presence of the portrait in Chapter 1 allows the reader to hear something about Dorian before his character appears in the novel. Basil speaks at length about Dorian, stating that he is charming, but also that \"Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain.\" This characterization links Dorian with Lord Henry as a manipulator and foreshadows their close relationship later in the story. Chapter 1 also introduces some of the major themes of the novel: the importance and power of beauty in relation to the intellect and the soul, and the fleeting nature of beauty. While discussing the merits of beauty as opposed to intellect, Basil states that there is \"a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings.\" Basil's statement indicates that physical and intellectual excellence are often the downfall of those who possess them. The reader should note how Basil's statement rings true throughout the novel. Wilde claimed that Lord Henry represented his public image but that the author actually was more like Basil and yearned to be more like Dorian. While the reader must always take care in accepting Wilde's comments at face value, he was like Basil in that he was a creative artist and privately perhaps less secure than his public image. He certainly did admire youth and beauty, which Dorian possesses. Still, Lord Henry is the Wildean character in this novel: bright, witty, and controlling. Glossary Persian saddle-bags enormous leather bags laid across the backs of camels, behind the saddle; here, a number of them are stuffed and arranged together so that a person can lounge or recline on them. blossoms of a laburnum a small, spreading tree with golden flowers and highly poisonous seeds. the long tussore-silk curtains brown silk from India, usually stronger but more coarsely woven than Chinese silk. straggling woodbine In the United States, woodbine is called wild honeysuckle and is sometimes referred to as Virginia creeper. the bourdon note of a distant organ a bourdon note is an extremely low, droning note. the Grosvenor For thirteen years, from 1877 to 1890, the Grosvenor Gallery was one of London's most prestigious galleries. During its heyday it often featured works from the Aesthetic movement, mentioned in Wilde's novel. stars and garters a reference to various public decorations such as the Order of the Garter, England's highest order of knighthood. precis French, meaning \"brief summary.\" salon French, meaning \"living room\" or \"parlor\"; here, it means a weekly or monthly gathering of artists and intellectuals. tremulous vibrating or quivering. ensconced settled securely or comfortably. pallid abnormally pale. truculent savage, belligerent. skeins lengths of thread or yarn wound into long, loose coils. languid lacking energy or spirit. proletariat the poorest class of working people. dowagers rich widows. the Academy The Royal Academy of Arts in London, founded in 1768. Its annual exhibition, which has been held every summer without a break since 1769, features the best 1,500 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and engravings from those submitted for judging. Oxford one of the two most revered British universities; the other is Cambridge. He is a Narcissus a self-centered person who is exceedingly fond of his appearance. I went to a crush a cocktail party. She brought me up to royalties Here, the reference is to frequent dinners and parties with the titled upper class. the East End the industrial or working class area of London, east of the banking and commercial section of London, referred to as \"the City.\""}

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light
summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through
the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate
perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was
lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry
Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured
blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to
bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then
the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long
tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,
producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of
those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of
an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of
swiftness and motion.  The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their
way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous
insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,
seemed to make the stillness more oppressive.  The dim roar of London
was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the
full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,
and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist
himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago
caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many
strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so
skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his
face, and seemed about to linger there.  But he suddenly started up,
and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he
sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he
feared he might awake.

"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said
Lord Henry languidly.  "You must certainly send it next year to the
Grosvenor.  The Academy is too large and too vulgar.  Whenever I have
gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been
able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that
I have not been able to see the people, which was worse.  The Grosvenor
is really the only place."

"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head
back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at
Oxford.  "No, I won't send it anywhere."

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through
the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls
from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.  "Not send it anywhere?  My
dear fellow, why?  Have you any reason?  What odd chaps you painters
are!  You do anything in the world to gain a reputation.  As soon as
you have one, you seem to want to throw it away.  It is silly of you,
for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about.  A portrait like this would set you
far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite
jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion."

"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit
it.  I have put too much of myself into it."

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same."

"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you
were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with
your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young
Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why,
my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an
intellectual expression and all that.  But beauty, real beauty, ends
where an intellectual expression begins.  Intellect is in itself a mode
of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.  The moment one
sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something
horrid.  Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.
How perfectly hideous they are!  Except, of course, in the Church.  But
then in the Church they don't think.  A bishop keeps on saying at the
age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,
and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.
Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but
whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks.  I feel quite sure of
that.  He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always
here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in
summer when we want something to chill our intelligence.  Don't flatter
yourself, Basil:  you are not in the least like him."

"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist.  "Of course I am
not like him.  I know that perfectly well.  Indeed, I should be sorry
to look like him.  You shrug your shoulders?  I am telling you the
truth.  There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual
distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the
faltering steps of kings.  It is better not to be different from one's
fellows.  The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.
They can sit at their ease and gape at the play.  If they know nothing
of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.  They
live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without
disquiet.  They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it
from alien hands.  Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they
are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we
shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly."

"Dorian Gray?  Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across the
studio towards Basil Hallward.

"Yes, that is his name.  I didn't intend to tell it to you."

"But why not?"

"Oh, I can't explain.  When I like people immensely, I never tell their
names to any one.  It is like surrendering a part of them.  I have
grown to love secrecy.  It seems to be the one thing that can make
modern life mysterious or marvellous to us.  The commonest thing is
delightful if one only hides it.  When I leave town now I never tell my
people where I am going.  If I did, I would lose all my pleasure.  It
is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great
deal of romance into one's life.  I suppose you think me awfully
foolish about it?"

"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil.  You
seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that
it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.  I
never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing.
When we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go
down to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the
most serious faces.  My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact,
than I am.  She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do.
But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all.  I sometimes
wish she would; but she merely laughs at me."

"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil
Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden.  "I
believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are
thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues.  You are an extraordinary
fellow.  You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.
Your cynicism is simply a pose."

"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,"
cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the
garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that
stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush.  The sunlight slipped over
the polished leaves.  In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.

After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch.  "I am afraid I must be
going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your
answering a question I put to you some time ago."

"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

"You know quite well."

"I do not, Harry."

"Well, I will tell you what it is.  I want you to explain to me why you
won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture.  I want the real reason."

"I told you the real reason."

"No, you did not.  You said it was because there was too much of
yourself in it.  Now, that is childish."

"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every
portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not
of the sitter.  The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.  It is
not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on
the coloured canvas, reveals himself.  The reason I will not exhibit
this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of
my own soul."

Lord Henry laughed.  "And what is that?" he asked.

"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came
over his face.

"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him.

"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter;
"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it.  Perhaps you will
hardly believe it."

Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from
the grass and examined it.  "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he
replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,
"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it
is quite incredible."

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy
lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the
languid air.  A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a
blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze
wings.  Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart
beating, and wondered what was coming.

"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time.  "Two
months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor
artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to
remind the public that we are not savages.  With an evening coat and a
white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain
a reputation for being civilized.  Well, after I had been in the room
about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious
academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at
me.  I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.
When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale.  A curious sensation
of terror came over me.  I knew that I had come face to face with some
one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to
do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art
itself.  I did not want any external influence in my life.  You know
yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature.  I have always been my
own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.
Then--but I don't know how to explain it to you.  Something seemed to
tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life.  I had
a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and
exquisite sorrows.  I grew afraid and turned to quit the room.  It was
not conscience that made me do so:  it was a sort of cowardice.  I take
no credit to myself for trying to escape."

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

"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.
However, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used
to be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door.  There, of course,
I stumbled against Lady Brandon.  'You are not going to run away so
soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out.  You know her curiously shrill
voice?"

"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry,
pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.

"I could not get rid of her.  She brought me up to royalties, and
people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras
and parrot noses.  She spoke of me as her dearest friend.  I had only
met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me.  I
believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at
least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the
nineteenth-century standard of immortality.  Suddenly I found myself
face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely
stirred me.  We were quite close, almost touching.  Our eyes met again.
It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.
Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all.  It was simply inevitable.
We would have spoken to each other without any introduction.  I am sure
of that.  Dorian told me so afterwards.  He, too, felt that we were
destined to know each other."

"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his
companion.  "I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her
guests.  I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old
gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my
ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to
everybody in the room, the most astounding details.  I simply fled.  I
like to find out people for myself.  But Lady Brandon treats her guests
exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.  She either explains them
entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants
to know."

"Poor Lady Brandon!  You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward
listlessly.

"My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in
opening a restaurant.  How could I admire her?  But tell me, what did
she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?"

"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely
inseparable.  Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do
anything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr.
Gray?'  Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at
once."

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far
the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy.

Hallward shook his head.  "You don't understand what friendship is,
Harry," he murmured--"or what enmity is, for that matter.  You like
every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."

"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back
and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of
glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the
summer sky.  "Yes; horribly unjust of you.  I make a great difference
between people.  I choose my friends for their good looks, my
acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good
intellects.  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I have not got one who is a fool.  They are all men of some
intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.  Is that
very vain of me?  I think it is rather vain."

"I should think it was, Harry.  But according to your category I must
be merely an acquaintance."

"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance."

"And much less than a friend.  A sort of brother, I suppose?"

"Oh, brothers!  I don't care for brothers.  My elder brother won't die,
and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else."

"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.

"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious.  But I can't help detesting my
relations.  I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand
other people having the same faults as ourselves.  I quite sympathize
with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices
of the upper orders.  The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and
immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of
us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.  When
poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite
magnificent.  And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the
proletariat live correctly."

"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is
more, Harry, I feel sure you don't either."

Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his
patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane.  "How English you are
Basil!  That is the second time you have made that observation.  If one
puts forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to
do--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong.
The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes
it oneself.  Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do
with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.  Indeed, the
probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely
intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured
by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.  However, I don't
propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you.  I
like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no
principles better than anything else in the world.  Tell me more about
Mr. Dorian Gray.  How often do you see him?"

"Every day.  I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day.  He is
absolutely necessary to me."

"How extraordinary!  I thought you would never care for anything but
your art."

"He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely.  "I sometimes
think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the
world's history.  The first is the appearance of a new medium for art,
and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also.
What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of
Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will
some day be to me.  It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from
him, sketch from him.  Of course, I have done all that.  But he is much
more to me than a model or a sitter.  I won't tell you that I am
dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such
that art cannot express it.  There is nothing that art cannot express,
and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good
work, is the best work of my life.  But in some curious way--I wonder
will you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an
entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style.  I see
things differently, I think of them differently.  I can now recreate
life in a way that was hidden from me before.  'A dream of form in days
of thought'--who is it who says that?  I forget; but it is what Dorian
Gray has been to me.  The merely visible presence of this lad--for he
seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over
twenty--his merely visible presence--ah!  I wonder can you realize all
that that means?  Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh
school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic
spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek.  The harmony of
soul and body--how much that is!  We in our madness have separated the
two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is
void.  Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!  You remember
that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price
but which I would not part with?  It is one of the best things I have
ever done.  And why is it so?  Because, while I was painting it, Dorian
Gray sat beside me.  Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and
for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I
had always looked for and always missed."

"Basil, this is extraordinary!  I must see Dorian Gray."

Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden.  After
some time he came back.  "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray is to me simply
a motive in art.  You might see nothing in him.  I see everything in
him.  He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is
there.  He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner.  I find
him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of
certain colours.  That is all."

"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry.

"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of
all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never
cared to speak to him.  He knows nothing about it.  He shall never know
anything about it.  But the world might guess it, and I will not bare
my soul to their shallow prying eyes.  My heart shall never be put
under their microscope.  There is too much of myself in the thing,
Harry--too much of myself!"

"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.  They know how useful passion
is for publication.  Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions."

"I hate them for it," cried Hallward.  "An artist should create
beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.  We
live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of
autobiography.  We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.  Some day I
will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall
never see my portrait of Dorian Gray."

"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you.  It is only
the intellectually lost who ever argue.  Tell me, is Dorian Gray very
fond of you?"

The painter considered for a few moments.  "He likes me," he answered
after a pause; "I know he likes me.  Of course I flatter him
dreadfully.  I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I
know I shall be sorry for having said.  As a rule, he is charming to
me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things.  Now and
then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real
delight in giving me pain.  Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away
my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put
in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a
summer's day."

"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry.
"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will.  It is a sad thing to think
of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.  That
accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate
ourselves.  In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have
something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and
facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.  The thoroughly
well-informed man--that is the modern ideal.  And the mind of the
thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.  It is like a
_bric-a-brac_ shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above
its proper value.  I think you will tire first, all the same.  Some day
you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little
out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.
You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think
that he has behaved very badly to you.  The next time he calls, you
will be perfectly cold and indifferent.  It will be a great pity, for
it will alter you.  What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance
of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind
is that it leaves one so unromantic."

"Harry, don't talk like that.  As long as I live, the personality of
Dorian Gray will dominate me.  You can't feel what I feel.  You change
too often."

"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it.  Those who are
faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who
know love's tragedies."  And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty
silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and
satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase.  There was
a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy,
and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like
swallows.  How pleasant it was in the garden!  And how delightful other
people's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it
seemed to him.  One's own soul, and the passions of one's
friends--those were the fascinating things in life.  He pictured to
himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed
by staying so long with Basil Hallward.  Had he gone to his aunt's, he
would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole
conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the
necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the
importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity
in their own lives.  The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift,
and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.  It was
charming to have escaped all that!  As he thought of his aunt, an idea
seemed to strike him.  He turned to Hallward and said, "My dear fellow,
I have just remembered."

"Remembered what, Harry?"

"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."

"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.

"Don't look so angry, Basil.  It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's.  She
told me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help
her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray.  I am bound to
state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no
appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.  She said
that he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature.  I at once
pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly
freckled, and tramping about on huge feet.  I wish I had known it was
your friend."

"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."

"Why?"

"I don't want you to meet him."

"You don't want me to meet him?"

"No."

"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into
the garden.

"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.

The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.
"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker:  I shall be in in a few moments." The
man bowed and went up the walk.

Then he looked at Lord Henry.  "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he
said.  "He has a simple and a beautiful nature.  Your aunt was quite
right in what she said of him.  Don't spoil him.  Don't try to
influence him.  Your influence would be bad.  The world is wide, and
has many marvellous people in it.  Don't take away from me the one
person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses:  my life as an
artist depends on him.  Mind, Harry, I trust you."  He spoke very
slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.

"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward
by the arm, he almost led him into the house.



Chapter 1
The Picture of Dorian Gray opens in the London studio of Basil Hallward, an artist. With him, reclining and smoking a cigarette, is Lord Henry "Harry" Wotton. Basil is finishing painting a portrait of "a young man of extraordinary personal beauty." Lord Henry praises the portrait as the best work that Basil has done and insists that it must be shown at a suitable gallery. To Lord Henry's surprise, Basil states that he will not show it anywhere: "I have put too much of myself in it." Basil tries to keep the painting's subject's identity a secret from Lord Henry, then accidentally discloses that the beautiful young man's name is Dorian Gray. Basil admits that he prefers to keep favorite people to himself, not even telling others their names because he feels he might lose a part of them. In fact, he has "grown to love secrecy." Even when he takes a trip, he keeps the destination private, a revelation that becomes important later in the story. Lord Henry answers that he understands, but he is more interested in Basil's reason for not exhibiting the portrait. Basil responds that any painting done with true feeling reveals more of the artist than it does the subject. He fears that the painting will reveal the secret of his soul. Basil explains how he met Dorian at Lady Brandon's home. He felt terror upon first seeing Dorian because he sensed that the young man's personality was so powerful that it could absorb him. More important, Dorian inspires a fresh approach to art in Basil, allowing him to produce the best work of his professional life. Because Basil worries that the public will detect his personal and artistic idolatry of Gray, he will not exhibit the portrait. Echoing a basic tenet of Aestheticism, he suggests that an artist should create beautiful work for its own sake; art shouldn't mean anything. He dismisses artists and critics who see art as a means for biographical expression, and he refuses to have his work thought of in that way. When Lord Henry expresses his desire to meet Gray, Basil explains that he wants to keep Dorian and the painting hidden away so that neither Dorian nor the world will ever know about his "curious artistic idolatry." Lord Henry suggests that Basil's feeling may pass and that he will eventually become indifferent to Dorian, but Basil disagrees. At that moment, the butler enters, announcing the arrival of Dorian, and Lord Henry laughs that they must meet now. Before entering the studio where Dorian is waiting, Basil asks Lord Henry not to influence or take away the person who inspires him as an artist.
Chapter 1 introduces two of the major characters of the book, and the reader learns a good deal about them. Basil is an artist of apparently independent means. He is secretive, and Wilde even mentions that Basil has disappeared without notice in the past. In addition, the distinctive toss of his head, the one that "used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford," characterizes Basil as someone who is thought of as an odd, yet endearing, fellow. Although Basil claims to be independent, he is instantly overpowered by Dorian upon meeting him, becoming dependent on Dorian immediately as his muse, spirit, art, and life. Basil's attraction to Dorian seems to be both professional and personal. Dorian inspires Basil to a new vision of art, combining Greek perfection with Romantic passion. However, there is every implication of something more personal in the attraction. Basil is also a jealous person, wanting to keep Dorian from Lord Henry so that he can have Dorian all to himself. The other main character introduced in Chapter 1 is Lord Henry Wotton, a very intelligent, confident, manipulative man. He decadently smokes opium-tainted cigarettes and has a commanding presence no matter where he is or whom he socializes with. He is very judgmental and enjoys sounding profound. Like Wilde himself, Lord Henry often speaks in aphorisms. As he speaks with Basil, Lord Henry picks a daisy from the grass to examine it, later pulling the daisy apart, an act that symbolizes his role throughout the novel as a manipulator and destroyer of beauty for his own amusement. Although it may seem strange to categorize a painting as a character, Basil's portrait of Dorian plays such an important role in the book that the reader is actually introduced to the painting as if it were a character before meeting Dorian himself. Perhaps Wilde is indicating that Dorian's reputation for physical beauty precedes him and is more important to his character than any other attribute. In any case, the presence of the portrait in Chapter 1 allows the reader to hear something about Dorian before his character appears in the novel. Basil speaks at length about Dorian, stating that he is charming, but also that "Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain." This characterization links Dorian with Lord Henry as a manipulator and foreshadows their close relationship later in the story. Chapter 1 also introduces some of the major themes of the novel: the importance and power of beauty in relation to the intellect and the soul, and the fleeting nature of beauty. While discussing the merits of beauty as opposed to intellect, Basil states that there is "a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings." Basil's statement indicates that physical and intellectual excellence are often the downfall of those who possess them. The reader should note how Basil's statement rings true throughout the novel. Wilde claimed that Lord Henry represented his public image but that the author actually was more like Basil and yearned to be more like Dorian. While the reader must always take care in accepting Wilde's comments at face value, he was like Basil in that he was a creative artist and privately perhaps less secure than his public image. He certainly did admire youth and beauty, which Dorian possesses. Still, Lord Henry is the Wildean character in this novel: bright, witty, and controlling. Glossary Persian saddle-bags enormous leather bags laid across the backs of camels, behind the saddle; here, a number of them are stuffed and arranged together so that a person can lounge or recline on them. blossoms of a laburnum a small, spreading tree with golden flowers and highly poisonous seeds. the long tussore-silk curtains brown silk from India, usually stronger but more coarsely woven than Chinese silk. straggling woodbine In the United States, woodbine is called wild honeysuckle and is sometimes referred to as Virginia creeper. the bourdon note of a distant organ a bourdon note is an extremely low, droning note. the Grosvenor For thirteen years, from 1877 to 1890, the Grosvenor Gallery was one of London's most prestigious galleries. During its heyday it often featured works from the Aesthetic movement, mentioned in Wilde's novel. stars and garters a reference to various public decorations such as the Order of the Garter, England's highest order of knighthood. precis French, meaning "brief summary." salon French, meaning "living room" or "parlor"; here, it means a weekly or monthly gathering of artists and intellectuals. tremulous vibrating or quivering. ensconced settled securely or comfortably. pallid abnormally pale. truculent savage, belligerent. skeins lengths of thread or yarn wound into long, loose coils. languid lacking energy or spirit. proletariat the poorest class of working people. dowagers rich widows. the Academy The Royal Academy of Arts in London, founded in 1768. Its annual exhibition, which has been held every summer without a break since 1769, features the best 1,500 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and engravings from those submitted for judging. Oxford one of the two most revered British universities; the other is Cambridge. He is a Narcissus a self-centered person who is exceedingly fond of his appearance. I went to a crush a cocktail party. She brought me up to royalties Here, the reference is to frequent dinners and parties with the titled upper class. the East End the industrial or working class area of London, east of the banking and commercial section of London, referred to as "the City."