ealth and great
personal beauty, whose friend paints a picture of him. Dorian Gray
expresses the wish that he would remain as in the picture, while the
picture aged with the years. His wish was granted, and he soon knew that
upon the picture and not upon his own face the scars of trouble and bad
conduct were falling. In the end he stabbed the picture and fell dead.
The picture was restored to its pristine beauty, while his friends find
on the floor the body of a hideous old man. "I shall be surprised," said
Counsel in conclusion, "if my learned friend (Mr. Carson) can pitch upon
any passage in that book which does more than describe as novelists and
dramatists may, nay, must, describe the passions and the fashions of
life."

Lord Queensberry's Counsel was Mr. (now Sir Edward) Carson, M.P. He
proceeded, after Sir Edward's Clarke's speech, to cross-examine Mr.
Wilde on the subject of his writings.

Counsel: You are of opinion, I believe, that there is no such thing as
an immoral book?

Witness: Yes.

Am I right in saying that you do not consider the effect in creating
morality or immorality?--Certainly, I do not.

So far as your works are concerned you pose as not being concerned about
morality or immorality?--I do not know whether you use the word "pose"
in any particular sense.

It is a favourite word of your own?--Is it? I have no pose in this
matter. In writing a play or a book I am concerned entirely with
literature, that is, with art. I aim not at doing good or evil, but in
trying to make a thing that will have some quality of beauty.

After the criticisms that were passed on "Dorian Gray" was it modified a
good deal?--No. Additions were made. In one case it was pointed out to
me--not in a newspaper or anything of that sort, but by the only critic
of the century whose opinion I set high, Mr. Walter Pater--that a
certain passage was liable to misconstruction, and I made one addition.

This is in your introduction to "Dorian Gray": "There is no such thing
as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
That is all."--That expresses my view of art.

Then, I take it that no matter how immoral a book may be, if it is well
written it is, in your opinion, a good book?--Yes; if it were well
written so as to produce a sense of beauty which is the highest sense of
which a human being can be capable. If it were badly written it would
produce a sense of disgust.

Then a well-written book put