Mr. Carson, continuing to read: "I adored you extravagantly?"—Do you mean financially?
Oh, yes, financially. Do you think we are talking about finance?—I do not know what you are talking about.
Don't you? Well, I hope, I shall make myself very plain before I have done. "I was jealous of every one to whom you spoke." Have you ever been jealous of a young man?—Never in my life.
"I wanted to have you all to myself." Did you ever have that feeling?—No, I should consider it an intense nuisance, an intense bore.
"I grew afraid that the world would know of my idolatry." Why should he grow afraid that the world should know of it?—Because there are people in the world who cannot understand the intense devotion, affection and admiration that an artist can feel for a wonderful and beautiful personality. These are the conditions under which we live. I regret them.
These unfortunate people, that have not the high understanding that you have, might put it down to something wrong?—Undoubtedly; to any point they chose. I am not concerned with the ignorance of others.
In another passage Dorian Gray receives a book.[36] Was the book to which you refer a moral book?—Not well written?
Pressed further upon this point, and as to whether the book he had in mind was not of a certain tendency, Mr. Wilde declined with some warmth to be cross-examined upon the work of another artist. It was, he said, "an impertinence and a vulgarity." He admitted that he had in his mind a French book entitled A Rebours. Mr. Carson wanted to elicit Mr. Wilde's view as to the morality of that book, but Sir Edward Clarke succeeded, on an appeal to the Judge, in stopping any further reference to it.
Counsel then quoted another extract[37] from the Lippincott version of "Dorian Gray," in which the artist tells Dorian of the scandals about him, and finally asks, "Why is your friendship so fateful to young men?" Asked whether the passage in its ordinary meaning did not suggest a certain charge, witness stated that it described Dorian Gray as a man of very corrupt influence, though there was no statement as to the nature of his influence. "But as a matter of fact," he added, "I do not think that one person influences another, nor do I think there is any bad influence in the world."
Counsel: A man never corrupts a youth?—I think not.