The Picture of Dorian Gray : Chapter 3

I. Quotations
1. "There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth [...] there was a real joy in that." (page 39)

• The desire to influence is empowered by possessive instinct. Just as Basil is using Dorian as an inspiration of arts, Lord Henry is using Dorian Gray as a proof of he's intelligence and remains of youth. Lord Henry simply enjoys injecting his radical and somehow poisonous thoughts into this lovely and flawless young man. In his mind, building one's personality is a form of art, too. Actually, it is not only the art human performs, but also the God's work - creating one's soul.
  

2. “He would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him - had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of Love and Death." (page 40)

• The two best friends, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward, are fighting over the ownership of Dorian Gray. In their eyes, Dorian is just "some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in winter when we [they] have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we [they] want something to chill our [their] intelligence" (5). Dorian is being used as their inspirations and motivations of living delightful life, instead of the previous dreadful one. The dominance both man are seeking for turned them to pathetic leech - drink one's blood in order to live - in this case, steal Dorian's charming youth to satisfy their varies of desire. Dorian Gray is destine to be the "son of Love and Death" (40): Lord Henry and Basil's "love" for Dorian was too aggressive that it may hurt this handsome lad, and even leads him to "death".
  

II. Vocabulary
1. stoutness - [n.]
1> the property of being strong and resolute;
2> the property of excessive fatness
Ex. "Women who are not Duchesses are described by contemporary historians as stoutness." (41)

2. iridescent - [adj.]
1> varying in color when seen in different lights or from different angles
2> having a play of lustrous rainbow-like colors
Ex. "He played with the idea [...] made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox." (44)