The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapter 6

Basil and Lord Henry meet, and Lord Henry tells Basil about Dorian's engagement. Basil thinks it is awful that Dorian would marrying beneath him, but Lord Henry says that it will make Dorian a more interesting study: "I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by someone else. He would be a wonderful study." Chapter 6, pg. 84 Basil doesn't believe that Lord Henry means this, but Lord Henry insists that he does.

Topic Tracking: Hedonism 3

Dorian enters, they sit down for dinner, and he tells them how the engagement came about. He saw Sibyl play Rosalind one night, and afterward he saw her and they suddenly kissed; he told her he loved her, and she said she was unworthy to be his wife. Lord Henry says that the women are usually the ones to bring up marriage, but Dorian says: "I want to place her on a pedestal of gold, and to see the world worship the woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at it for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take." Chapter 6, pg. 87

He says that being in love with Sibyl makes him forget all of Lord Henry's theories. Lord Henry philosophizes a bit more: he says that good is following one's own nature, rather than the nature of other people. Being moral has nothing to do with it; pleasure is the highest aim, not morality. Basil says that if one is immoral, one will suffer and be unhappy, but Lord Henry thinks that this is out of date. Dorian says that the greatest pleasure is to love someone. Even though Lord Henry is cynical in his views about women, Dorian likes him very much, and Lord Henry says that Dorian will always like him. The three of them leave for the theatre, and Basil thinks on the way that things have changed forever, that Dorian will never be what he once was to him. He feels much older as he gets to the theatre.