Wilde, who at times was extremely indolent, had an amiable weakness for using the material at hand, and throughout his writings we find whole lines of verse and prose sentences reappearing in work produced at another period. It is the same with the epigrams in "Dorian Gray," most of which were subsequently transferred, bodily, to his plays. During his travels in Italy, as I have already pointed out, he had been enormously impressed by the stately ceremonials of the Catholic Church, and in this book he uses his opportunity of introducing the ornate and sumptuous vestments worn at her services. Dorian Gray, he tells us, "had a special passion also for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the long cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house he had stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purples and jewels and fine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by the suffering that she seeks for, and wounded by self-inflicted pain. He had a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the pineapple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the coronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood. This was Italian work of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of green velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves, from which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. The morse bore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work. The orphreys were woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with medallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St Sebastian. He had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold brocades, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with representation of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and embroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins and _fleurs de lys_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and many corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria." It may also be noted here that a couple of chapters, those dealing with Sybil's home and the death of her brother, were not written till the story appeared in book form, and a certain extra number of words were required to make the volume of the requisite bulk; so must writers submit to the inexorable demands of publishers who measure work not by its merit but by a footrule.