finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_4_part_1.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 9
chapter 9
{"name": "Chapter 9", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210228142327/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/section5/", "summary": "The next day, Basil comes to offer his condolences to Dorian, but Dorian dismisses the memory of Sibyl lightly and easily, remarking, \"What is done is done. What is past is past. Horrified at the change in Dorian, Basil blames Lord Henry for Dorian's heartless attitude. Indeed, in discussing Sibyl's death, Dorian uses many of the same phrases and arguments that Lord Henry favors and evokes a similar air of unaffected composure. He claims that Sibyl's death elevates her \"into the sphere of art. Dorian asks Basil to do a drawing of Sibyl so that he has something by which to remember her. Basil agrees and begs Dorian to return to his studio for a sitting. When Dorian refuses, Basil asks if he is displeased with his portrait, which Basil means to show at an exhibition. When Basil goes to remove the screen with which Dorian has covered the painting, Dorian's composure cracks. Dorian insists that the work never appear in public and pledges never to speak to Basil again should he touch the screen. Remembering Basil's original refusal to show the painting, Dorian asks why he has changed his mind. Basil confesses that he was worried that the painting would reveal his obsession with Dorian. Now, however, Basil believes that the painting, like all art, \"conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. Basil again asks Dorian to sit for him, and Dorian again refuses. When Basil leaves, Dorian decides to hide his portrait", "analysis": "Sibyl's death compels Dorian to make the conscious decision to embrace Lord Henry's philosophy of selfishness and hedonism wholeheartedly. The contrast between Dorian's and Basil's reactions to Sibyl's death demonstrates the degree to which Lord Henry has changed Dorian. Dorian dismisses the need for grief in words that echo Lord Henry's: Sibyl need not be mourned, he proclaims, for she has \"passed . . . into the sphere of art.\" In other words, Dorian thinks of Sibyl's death as he would the death of a character in a novel or painting, and chooses not to be affected emotionally by her passing. This attitude reveals one way in which the novel blurs the distinction between life and art. Dorian himself passes \"into the sphere of art\" when his portrait reflects the physical manifestations of age and sin. While it is usually paintings that never age and people who do, it is the other way around with Dorian, as he has become more like a work of art than a human. Basil's declaration of his obsession with Dorian is in many ways a defense and justification of homosexual love. In 1895, five years after Dorian Gray was published, Wilde was famously convicted of sodomy for his romantic relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde defended homosexual love as an emotion experienced by some of the world's greatest men. He insisted that it had its roots in ancient Greece and was, therefore, fundamental to the development of Western thought and culture. In his trial, when asked to describe the \"love that dare not speak its name,\" Wilde explained it as  such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. . . . It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it.  This testimony is strikingly similar to Dorian's reflection upon the kind of affection that Basil shows him:  t was really love-- had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses, and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michael Angelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Basil translates these highly emotional and physical feelings into his art; his act of painting is an expression of his love for Dorian. This romantic devotion to Dorian becomes clear when he admits his reason for not wanting to exhibit the painting: he fears that people will see his \"idolatry.\" Dorian reflects, for a moment, that with this love Basil might have saved him from Lord Henry's influence, but he soon resigns himself to living a life dictated by the pursuit of passion. He devours the mysterious \"yellow book\" that Lord Henry gives him, which acts almost as a guide for the journey on which he is to travel. Like the protagonist of that novel, Dorian spirals into a world of self-gratification and exotic sensations. Although Wilde, in letters, identified the novel as imaginary, it is based in part on the nineteenth-century French novel A Rebours , by Joris-Karl Huysmans, in which a decadent and wealthy Frenchman indulges himself in a host of bizarre sensory experiences. The yellow book has profound influence on Dorian; one might argue that it leads to his downfall. This downfall occurs not because the book itself is immoral here is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book\") but because Dorian allows the book to dominate and determine his actions so completely. It becomes, for Dorian, a doctrine as limiting and stultifying as the common Victorian morals from which he seeks escape. After all, Lord Henry is a great fan of the yellow book, but, to his mind, it is no greater or more important than any other work of notable art. He does not let it dominate his life or determine his actions, which, in turn, allows him to retain the respectability that Dorian soon loses."}

As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown
into the room.

"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely.  "I called
last night, and they told me you were at the opera.  Of course, I knew
that was impossible.  But I wish you had left word where you had really
gone to.  I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy
might be followed by another.  I think you might have telegraphed for
me when you heard of it first.  I read of it quite by chance in a late
edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club.  I came here at once
and was miserable at not finding you.  I can't tell you how
heart-broken I am about the whole thing.  I know what you must suffer.
But where were you?  Did you go down and see the girl's mother?  For a
moment I thought of following you there.  They gave the address in the
paper.  Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it?  But I was afraid of
intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten.  Poor woman!  What a
state she must be in!  And her only child, too!  What did she say about
it all?"

"My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some
pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass
and looking dreadfully bored.  "I was at the opera.  You should have
come on there.  I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first
time.  We were in her box.  She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang
divinely.  Don't talk about horrid subjects.  If one doesn't talk about
a thing, it has never happened.  It is simply expression, as Harry
says, that gives reality to things.  I may mention that she was not the
woman's only child.  There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe.  But
he is not on the stage.  He is a sailor, or something.  And now, tell
me about yourself and what you are painting."

"You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a
strained touch of pain in his voice.  "You went to the opera while
Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging?  You can talk to me
of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before
the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in?  Why,
man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!"

"Stop, Basil!  I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.
"You must not tell me about things.  What is done is done.  What is
past is past."

"You call yesterday the past?"

"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it?  It is only
shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.  A man who
is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a
pleasure.  I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to
use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."

"Dorian, this is horrible!  Something has changed you completely.  You
look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come
down to my studio to sit for his picture.  But you were simple,
natural, and affectionate then.  You were the most unspoiled creature
in the whole world.  Now, I don't know what has come over you.  You
talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.  It is all Harry's
influence.  I see that."

The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few
moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden.  "I owe a great
deal to Harry, Basil," he said at last, "more than I owe to you.  You
only taught me to be vain."

"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day."

"I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round.  "I
don't know what you want.  What do you want?"

"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint," said the artist sadly.

"Basil," said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his
shoulder, "you have come too late.  Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl
Vane had killed herself--"

"Killed herself!  Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?" cried
Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.

"My dear Basil!  Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident?  Of
course she killed herself."

The elder man buried his face in his hands.  "How fearful," he
muttered, and a shudder ran through him.

"No," said Dorian Gray, "there is nothing fearful about it.  It is one
of the great romantic tragedies of the age.  As a rule, people who act
lead the most commonplace lives.  They are good husbands, or faithful
wives, or something tedious.  You know what I mean--middle-class virtue
and all that kind of thing.  How different Sibyl was!  She lived her
finest tragedy.  She was always a heroine.  The last night she
played--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known
the reality of love.  When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet
might have died.  She passed again into the sphere of art.  There is
something of the martyr about her.  Her death has all the pathetic
uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  But, as I was saying,
you must not think I have not suffered.  If you had come in yesterday
at a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to
six--you would have found me in tears.  Even Harry, who was here, who
brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through.  I
suffered immensely.  Then it passed away.  I cannot repeat an emotion.
No one can, except sentimentalists.  And you are awfully unjust, Basil.
You come down here to console me.  That is charming of you.  You find
me consoled, and you are furious.  How like a sympathetic person!  You
remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who
spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance
redressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was.
Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment.  He
had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a
confirmed misanthrope.  And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really
want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to
see it from a proper artistic point of view.  Was it not Gautier who
used to write about _la consolation des arts_?  I remember picking up a
little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that
delightful phrase.  Well, I am not like that young man you told me of
when we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say
that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life.  I
love beautiful things that one can touch and handle.  Old brocades,
green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings,
luxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these.  But the artistic
temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to
me.  To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to
escape the suffering of life.  I know you are surprised at my talking
to you like this.  You have not realized how I have developed.  I was a
schoolboy when you knew me.  I am a man now.  I have new passions, new
thoughts, new ideas.  I am different, but you must not like me less.  I
am changed, but you must always be my friend.  Of course, I am very
fond of Harry.  But I know that you are better than he is.  You are not
stronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better.  And how
happy we used to be together!  Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel
with me.  I am what I am.  There is nothing more to be said."

The painter felt strangely moved.  The lad was infinitely dear to him,
and his personality had been the great turning point in his art.  He
could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more.  After all, his
indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away.  There
was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.

"Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I won't speak to
you again about this horrible thing, after to-day.  I only trust your
name won't be mentioned in connection with it.  The inquest is to take
place this afternoon.  Have they summoned you?"

Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at
the mention of the word "inquest."  There was something so crude and
vulgar about everything of the kind.  "They don't know my name," he
answered.

"But surely she did?"

"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned
to any one.  She told me once that they were all rather curious to
learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince
Charming.  It was pretty of her.  You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,
Basil.  I should like to have something more of her than the memory of
a few kisses and some broken pathetic words."

"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you.  But you
must come and sit to me yourself again.  I can't get on without you."

"I can never sit to you again, Basil.  It is impossible!" he exclaimed,
starting back.

The painter stared at him.  "My dear boy, what nonsense!" he cried.
"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you?  Where is it?
Why have you pulled the screen in front of it?  Let me look at it.  It
is the best thing I have ever done.  Do take the screen away, Dorian.
It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that.  I
felt the room looked different as I came in."

"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil.  You don't imagine I let
him arrange my room for me?  He settles my flowers for me
sometimes--that is all.  No; I did it myself.  The light was too strong
on the portrait."

"Too strong!  Surely not, my dear fellow?  It is an admirable place for
it.  Let me see it."  And Hallward walked towards the corner of the
room.

A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between
the painter and the screen.  "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you
must not look at it.  I don't wish you to."

"Not look at my own work!  You are not serious.  Why shouldn't I look
at it?" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.

"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never
speak to you again as long as I live.  I am quite serious.  I don't
offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any.  But, remember,
if you touch this screen, everything is over between us."

Hallward was thunderstruck.  He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute
amazement.  He had never seen him like this before.  The lad was
actually pallid with rage.  His hands were clenched, and the pupils of
his eyes were like disks of blue fire.  He was trembling all over.

"Dorian!"

"Don't speak!"

"But what is the matter?  Of course I won't look at it if you don't
want me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over
towards the window.  "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I
shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in
Paris in the autumn.  I shall probably have to give it another coat of
varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?"

"To exhibit it!  You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a
strange sense of terror creeping over him.  Was the world going to be
shown his secret?  Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?
That was impossible.  Something--he did not know what--had to be done
at once.

"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that.  Georges Petit is going
to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de
Seze, which will open the first week in October.  The portrait will
only be away a month.  I should think you could easily spare it for
that time.  In fact, you are sure to be out of town.  And if you keep
it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it."

Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead.  There were beads of
perspiration there.  He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible
danger.  "You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he
cried.  "Why have you changed your mind?  You people who go in for
being consistent have just as many moods as others have.  The only
difference is that your moods are rather meaningless.  You can't have
forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world
would induce you to send it to any exhibition.  You told Harry exactly
the same thing." He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into
his eyes.  He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half
seriously and half in jest, "If you want to have a strange quarter of
an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture.  He
told me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me."  Yes, perhaps
Basil, too, had his secret.  He would ask him and try.

"Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in
the face, "we have each of us a secret.  Let me know yours, and I shall
tell you mine.  What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my
picture?"

The painter shuddered in spite of himself.  "Dorian, if I told you, you
might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me.  I
could not bear your doing either of those two things.  If you wish me
never to look at your picture again, I am content.  I have always you
to look at.  If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden
from the world, I am satisfied.  Your friendship is dearer to me than
any fame or reputation."

"No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray.  "I think I have a
right to know."  His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity
had taken its place.  He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's
mystery.

"Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled.  "Let us
sit down.  And just answer me one question.  Have you noticed in the
picture something curious?--something that probably at first did not
strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?"

"Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling
hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.

"I see you did.  Don't speak.  Wait till you hear what I have to say.
Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most
extraordinary influence over me.  I was dominated, soul, brain, and
power, by you.  You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen
ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.  I
worshipped you.  I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke.  I
wanted to have you all to myself.  I was only happy when I was with
you.  When you were away from me, you were still present in my art....
Of course, I never let you know anything about this.  It would have
been impossible.  You would not have understood it.  I hardly
understood it myself.  I only knew that I had seen perfection face to
face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too
wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril
of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them....  Weeks and
weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you.  Then came a
new development.  I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as
Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with
heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing
across the green turbid Nile.  You had leaned over the still pool of
some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of
your own face.  And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,
ideal, and remote.  One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I
determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,
not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own
time.  Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of
your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or
veil, I cannot tell.  But I know that as I worked at it, every flake
and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret.  I grew afraid
that others would know of my idolatry.  I felt, Dorian, that I had told
too much, that I had put too much of myself into it.  Then it was that
I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited.  You were a
little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.
Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me.  But I did not mind
that.  When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt
that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,
and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its
presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I
had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking
and that I could paint.  Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a
mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really
shown in the work one creates.  Art is always more abstract than we
fancy.  Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all.  It
often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than
it ever reveals him.  And so when I got this offer from Paris, I
determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.
It never occurred to me that you would refuse.  I see now that you were
right.  The picture cannot be shown.  You must not be angry with me,
Dorian, for what I have told you.  As I said to Harry, once, you are
made to be worshipped."

Dorian Gray drew a long breath.  The colour came back to his cheeks,
and a smile played about his lips.  The peril was over.  He was safe
for the time.  Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the
painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered
if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a
friend.  Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous.  But that
was all.  He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of.
Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange
idolatry?  Was that one of the things that life had in store?

"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should
have seen this in the portrait.  Did you really see it?"

"I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very
curious."

"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?"

Dorian shook his head.  "You must not ask me that, Basil.  I could not
possibly let you stand in front of that picture."

"You will some day, surely?"

"Never."

"Well, perhaps you are right.  And now good-bye, Dorian.  You have been
the one person in my life who has really influenced my art.  Whatever I
have done that is good, I owe to you.  Ah! you don't know what it cost
me to tell you all that I have told you."

"My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me?  Simply that you
felt that you admired me too much.  That is not even a compliment."

"It was not intended as a compliment.  It was a confession.  Now that I
have made it, something seems to have gone out of me.  Perhaps one
should never put one's worship into words."

"It was a very disappointing confession."

"Why, what did you expect, Dorian?  You didn't see anything else in the
picture, did you?  There was nothing else to see?"

"No; there was nothing else to see.  Why do you ask?  But you mustn't
talk about worship.  It is foolish.  You and I are friends, Basil, and
we must always remain so."

"You have got Harry," said the painter sadly.

"Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter.  "Harry spends
his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is
improbable.  Just the sort of life I would like to lead.  But still I
don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble.  I would sooner
go to you, Basil."

"You will sit to me again?"

"Impossible!"

"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian.  No man comes
across two ideal things.  Few come across one."

"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.
There is something fatal about a portrait.  It has a life of its own.
I will come and have tea with you.  That will be just as pleasant."

"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward regretfully.  "And
now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once
again.  But that can't be helped.  I quite understand what you feel
about it."

As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself.  Poor Basil!  How
little he knew of the true reason!  And how strange it was that,
instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had
succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend!  How
much that strange confession explained to him!  The painter's absurd
fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his
curious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.
There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured
by romance.

He sighed and touched the bell.  The portrait must be hidden away at
all costs.  He could not run such a risk of discovery again.  It had
been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour,
in a room to which any of his friends had access.



Chapter 9
The next day, Basil comes to offer his condolences to Dorian, but Dorian dismisses the memory of Sibyl lightly and easily, remarking, "What is done is done. What is past is past. Horrified at the change in Dorian, Basil blames Lord Henry for Dorian's heartless attitude. Indeed, in discussing Sibyl's death, Dorian uses many of the same phrases and arguments that Lord Henry favors and evokes a similar air of unaffected composure. He claims that Sibyl's death elevates her "into the sphere of art. Dorian asks Basil to do a drawing of Sibyl so that he has something by which to remember her. Basil agrees and begs Dorian to return to his studio for a sitting. When Dorian refuses, Basil asks if he is displeased with his portrait, which Basil means to show at an exhibition. When Basil goes to remove the screen with which Dorian has covered the painting, Dorian's composure cracks. Dorian insists that the work never appear in public and pledges never to speak to Basil again should he touch the screen. Remembering Basil's original refusal to show the painting, Dorian asks why he has changed his mind. Basil confesses that he was worried that the painting would reveal his obsession with Dorian. Now, however, Basil believes that the painting, like all art, "conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. Basil again asks Dorian to sit for him, and Dorian again refuses. When Basil leaves, Dorian decides to hide his portrait
Sibyl's death compels Dorian to make the conscious decision to embrace Lord Henry's philosophy of selfishness and hedonism wholeheartedly. The contrast between Dorian's and Basil's reactions to Sibyl's death demonstrates the degree to which Lord Henry has changed Dorian. Dorian dismisses the need for grief in words that echo Lord Henry's: Sibyl need not be mourned, he proclaims, for she has "passed . . . into the sphere of art." In other words, Dorian thinks of Sibyl's death as he would the death of a character in a novel or painting, and chooses not to be affected emotionally by her passing. This attitude reveals one way in which the novel blurs the distinction between life and art. Dorian himself passes "into the sphere of art" when his portrait reflects the physical manifestations of age and sin. While it is usually paintings that never age and people who do, it is the other way around with Dorian, as he has become more like a work of art than a human. Basil's declaration of his obsession with Dorian is in many ways a defense and justification of homosexual love. In 1895, five years after Dorian Gray was published, Wilde was famously convicted of sodomy for his romantic relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde defended homosexual love as an emotion experienced by some of the world's greatest men. He insisted that it had its roots in ancient Greece and was, therefore, fundamental to the development of Western thought and culture. In his trial, when asked to describe the "love that dare not speak its name," Wilde explained it as  such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. . . . It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it.  This testimony is strikingly similar to Dorian's reflection upon the kind of affection that Basil shows him:  t was really love-- had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses, and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michael Angelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Basil translates these highly emotional and physical feelings into his art; his act of painting is an expression of his love for Dorian. This romantic devotion to Dorian becomes clear when he admits his reason for not wanting to exhibit the painting: he fears that people will see his "idolatry." Dorian reflects, for a moment, that with this love Basil might have saved him from Lord Henry's influence, but he soon resigns himself to living a life dictated by the pursuit of passion. He devours the mysterious "yellow book" that Lord Henry gives him, which acts almost as a guide for the journey on which he is to travel. Like the protagonist of that novel, Dorian spirals into a world of self-gratification and exotic sensations. Although Wilde, in letters, identified the novel as imaginary, it is based in part on the nineteenth-century French novel A Rebours , by Joris-Karl Huysmans, in which a decadent and wealthy Frenchman indulges himself in a host of bizarre sensory experiences. The yellow book has profound influence on Dorian; one might argue that it leads to his downfall. This downfall occurs not because the book itself is immoral here is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book") but because Dorian allows the book to dominate and determine his actions so completely. It becomes, for Dorian, a doctrine as limiting and stultifying as the common Victorian morals from which he seeks escape. After all, Lord Henry is a great fan of the yellow book, but, to his mind, it is no greater or more important than any other work of notable art. He does not let it dominate his life or determine his actions, which, in turn, allows him to retain the respectability that Dorian soon loses.