Lord Henry Wotton is a wealthy aristocrat who first meets the young title character of Wilde's novel in the studio of their mutual friend, the painter Basil Hallward. He espouses a cynical, well-developed code of hedonism and self-indulgence, suggesting that he regards marital fidelity as little more than a bourgeois...
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atavism. But it is clear that there is a limit to his impulse toward debauchery. As Hallward says:
I believe that you are really a very good husband but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues...You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose.
But the patrician esthete's first meeting with the extremely attractive Dorian Gray galvanizes his own artistic sense, inducing him to attempt to shape the innocent young man's character according to his own hedonistic philosophy. Dorian who is equally charmed by Lord Henry's wit, intellect and willingness to flout convention, ultimately turns to the dark side, following a path of depravity unimaginable even to his erstwhile mentor.