Line-by-line:
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
Paragraph one is a single sentence. Forty-five passive words. It gives a place, "the studio" (apparently in or near a garden) and a time "summer."
Sight and smell are heavily invoked (odour, scent, perfume). Colors are heavily invoked (rose, lilac, pink). The only active verb is the stirring done by that light wind.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.
Woo! Super-sentence! One hundred and nineteen words. Let's see if we can break this down a bit. Separating the sentence out, clause-by-clause, we find:
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying,
smoking,
as was his custom,
innumerable cigarettes,
Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum,
whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs;
First half of the sentence is now complete--we've introduced a person into the place. We have an idea of his social station,
Lord, and something of his character. He is an aesthete.
We're back to the smells and the colors.
and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,
producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect,
and making him think of those pallid,
jade-faced painters of Tokio who,
through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile,
seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.
And we've introduced the theme of painting, and rendering the impression of motion in a fixed medium. (Incidentally,
Tokio is a perfectly valid, if rare, alternate spelling of Tokyo.) We're heavily into colors still (pallid, jade).
In contrast to the first paragraph, and the first half of this sentence, we have speed (and transitory) action: flitted, momentary, swiftness, motion.
The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive.
Sound is introduced in the second sentence, while passivity and neglect is emphasized. The bees murmur (sullenly). They "shoulder their way." They're monotonous. The grass is unmown. The woodbine (the flower theme again) is both dusty and straggling. The stillness is oppressive. One might suspect an impending thunderstorm.
The overall impression is of lassitude and boredom. This may be intended to revealing the character of Lord Henry Wotton.
The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.
A simple sentence, at last! Nailing down the location, as we hear the sounds of a major city, though it is "distant." The bourdon is a bass drone note.
So far we've got a person in a place with a problem: Lord Henry Wotton, in a studio, is bored.
