The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapters 3-4: Lord Henry's Influence

Chapter 3
Lord Henry pays a visit to his Tory blowhard uncle who knows everything about everyone, and asks about Dorian Gray. The uncle knew his grandfather and is able to provide the information. Dorian's mother married a penniless soldier for love; shortly after Dorian was born, the man was killed in a duel (the uncle suspects the grandfather hired a mercenary to do the deed), and the mother died within the year.

On his way to his aunt's for a dinner party with some friends of hers (including Dorian, in whose playing she has taken an interest), Lord Henry dreamily decides that this tragic backstory makes Dorian even cuter. ( It always does. )

Chapter 4
We join Dorian a month later sitting in Lord Henry's library. The room is described in detail with a lot of name-dropping of classy French things. ( Ooh, a Clodion statuette. )

Lord Henry's Quotable Oscar Wilde

• Chapter 3
  • "American girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past"
    
  • "Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic."
    
  • "I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect."
    
  • "I can sympathize with everything except suffering"
• Chapter 4
  • "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
    
  • "Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed."
    
  • "there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society."