The present extract is taken from “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, an 1891 philosophical novel by writer and playwright Oscar Wilde.

Right after a first read, the intelligent reader notice that the extract  can be divided into three sequences:

• The first consist of the introduction of the setting (Basil’s studio) and of Lord Henry Wotton: it opens in the London studio of Basil Hallward, an artist. With him there is Lord Henry Wotton, who is reclining and smoking a cigarette.
• The second is represented by the presentation of Basil’s work, Dorian Gray’s portrait: Basil is finishing painting a portrait of "a young man of extraordinary personal beauty".
• The last one is a dialogue/discussion between Wotton and Hallward: Lord Henry praises the portrait as the best work that Basil has done and tries to convince him to show it at the Grosvenor. To Lord Henry's surprise, Basil states that he will not show it anywhere because  "I have put too much of myself in it".

As you can see from this extract, the first chapter introduces two of the major characters of the book, and the reader learns a good deal about them.

 Basil is an artist of apparently independent means. He is secretive, and the narrator even mentions that Basil has disappeared without notice in the past. In addition, the distinctive toss of his head, the one that "used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford," characterizes Basil as someone who is thought of as an odd, yet endearing, fellow.

The other main character introduced is Lord Henry Wotton, a very intelligent and manipulative man. He smokes “opium-tainted” cigarettes and has a commanding presence no matter where he is or whom he socializes with. He is very judgmental and enjoys sounding profound (“The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place”).