This is Lady Henry's response to what Dorian says about bad music. She says that it seems like one of Henry's ideas, and that she usually hears Henry's ideas from his friends. This shows that Henry influences others and that he is successful in influencing Dorian. It is also strange that Lady Henry says that she only hears her husband's ideas from others. This may show that Henry does not care that much for his wife if he does not discuss life in the same mystical way that he discusses it with others. This also seems to be a paradox. If Lady Henry only heard her husband's ideas from others and never from Lord Henry himself, how would she know that those ideas belonged to her husband. How can she distinguish what her husband's ideas are if she has never heard them in the first place?
2) “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” (60).
This is another one of Lord Henry's ideas about life. He is referencing what Basil told him earlier. Basil is a good artist, who puts a lot of his own character into the portrait of Dorian. Because he is a good artist, who works so hard on his paintings, he loses the quality of artfulness from his character, which appears only in his work. After Lord Henry says this, Dorian wonders if it can be true. This is similar to what the other characters do when they hear Lord Henry speak. Then, because Henry has influenced Dorian so greatly, Dorian says that, since Lord Henry said it, it must be true.
Definitions:
1) "That is one of your aphorisms" (51).
aphorism: noun- a pithy observation that contains a general truth
2) "The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her lips" (49).
staccato: adjective- with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others
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