Oscar Wilde

“ Arbuthnot. I do not know it. I do not feel it, nor will I ever stand before God’s altar and ask God’s blessing on so hideous a mockery as a marriage between me and George Harford. I will not say the words the Church bids us to say. I will not say them. I dare not. How could I swear to love the man I loathe, to honour him who wrought you dishonour, to obey him who, in his mastery, made me to sin? No: marriage is a sacrament for those who love each other. It is not for such as him, or such as me. Gerald, to save you from the world’s sneers and taunts I have lied to the world. ”

“ Gerald. It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?
Lord Illingworth. You should never try to understand them. Women are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means—which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do—look at her, don’t listen to her.
Gerald. But women are awfully clever, aren’t they?
Lord Illingworth. One should always tell them so. But, to the philosopher, my dear Gerald, women represent the triumph of matter over mind—just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. ”

“ Hester. [Standing by table.] We are trying to build up life, Lady Hunstanton, on a better, truer, purer basis than life rests on here. This sounds strange to you all, no doubt. How could it sound other than strange? You rich people in England, you don’t know how you are living. How could you know? You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure. Living, as you all do, on others and by them, you sneer at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor, it is merely to keep them quiet for a season. ”

“ LADY HUNSTANTON
My dear!
MRS. ALLONBY
Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
LADY STUTFIELD
I see what you mean. It's very, very beautiful.
LADY HUNSTANTON
My dear child, you don't mean to tell me that you won't forgive your husband because he never loved any one else? Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.
LADY CAROLINE
Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane, that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages. ”

“ She will always suffer. For her there is no joy, no peace, no atonement. She is a woman who drags a chain like a guilty thing. She is a woman who wears a mask, like a thing that is a leper. The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish. Nothing can heal her! no anodyne can give her sleep! no poppies forgetfulness! She is lost! She is a lost soul!—That is why I call Lord Illingworth a bad man. That is why I don’t want my boy to be with him.
Gerald. My dear mother, it all sounds very tragic, of course. ”

“ Gerald. I am afraid not this afternoon, Lady Hunstanton.
Lady Hunstanton. Well, to-morrow, then. Ah, if you had a father, Gerald, he wouldn’t let you waste your life here. He would send you off with Lord Illingworth at once. But mothers are so weak. They give up to their sons in everything. We are all heart, all heart. Come, dear, I must call at the rectory and inquire for Mrs. Daubeny, who, I am afraid, is far from well. It is wonderful how the Archdeacon bears up, quite wonderful. He is the most sympathetic of husbands. Quite a model. Good-bye, Gerald, give my fondest love to your mother. ”

“ Lord Illingworth. Thoroughly sensible woman, your mother, Gerald. I knew she would come round in the end.
Gerald. My mother is awfully conscientious, Lord Illingworth, and I know she doesn’t think I am educated enough to be your secretary. She is perfectly right, too. I was fearfully idle when I was at school, and I couldn’t pass an examination now to save my life.
Lord Illingworth. My dear Gerald, examinations are of no value whatsoever. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him. ”

“ Lord Illingworth. It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.
Lady Hunstanton. How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s most important virtue. You have the most comforting views of life. ”

“ Lord Illingworth. All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.
Lady Hunstanton. I don’t understand a word, Lord Illingworth. But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don’t believe in women thinking too much. Women should think in moderation, as they should do all things in moderation.
Lord Illingworth. Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess. ”

“ LORD ILLINGWORTH
My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald's future considerably more important than your past.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT
Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.
LORD ILLINGWORTH
That is exactly what he should do. That is exactly what you should help him to do. What a typical woman you are! You talk sentimentally, and you are thoroughly selfish the whole time. But don't let us have a scene. Rachel, I want you to look at this matter from the common-sense point of view, from the point of view of what is best for our son, leaving you and me out of the question. ”

“ Arbuthnot. I have brought him up to be a good man.
Lord Illingworth. Quite so. And what is the result? You have educated him to be your judge if he ever finds you out. And a bitter, an unjust judge he will be to you. Don’t be deceived, Rachel. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. George, don’t take my son away from me. I have had twenty years of sorrow, and I have only had one thing to love me, only one thing to love. You have had a life of joy, and pleasure, and success. ”

“ You have not congratulated me yet, Miss Worsley.
HESTER
Are you very pleased about it?
GERALD
Of course I am. It means everything to me—things that were out of the reach of hope before may be within hope's reach now.
HESTER
Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.
LADY HUNSTANTON
I fancy, Caroline, that Diplomacy is what Lord Illingworth is aiming at. I heard that he was offered Vienna. But that may not be true.
LADY CAROLINE
I don't think that England should be represented abroad by an unmarried man, Jane. It might lead to complications. ”

“ Why, you are the best mother in the whole world. But after all, as Lord Illingworth says, it is impossible to live in such a place as Wrockley. You don’t mind it. But I’m ambitions; I want something more than that. I want to have a career. I want to do something that will make you proud of me, and Lord Illingworth is going to help me. He is going to do everything for me.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Gerald, don’t go away with Lord Illingworth. I implore you not to. Gerald, I beg you!
Gerald. Mother, how changeable you are! You don’t seem to know your own mind for a single moment. ”

“ Lord Illingworth has made you the most flattering offer, and travelling with him you would see the world—as much of it, at least, as one should look at—under the best auspices possible, and stay with all the right people, which is so important at this solemn moment in your career.
Gerald. I don’t want to see the world: I’ve seen enough of it.
Mrs. Allonby. I hope you don’t think you have exhausted life, Mr. Arbuthnot. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him.
Gerald. I don’t wish to leave my mother.
Lady Hunstanton. Now, Gerald, that is pure laziness on your part. ”

“ With all your pomp and wealth and art you don’t know how to live—you don’t even know that. You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You have lost life’s secret. Oh, your English society seems to me shallow, selfish, foolish. ”

“ LADY HUNSTANTON
Worn to shadows, dear?
MRS. ALLONBY
Yes, Lady Hunstanton. It is such a strain keeping men up to the mark. They are always trying to escape from us.
LADY STUTFIELD
It seems to me that it is we who are always trying to escape from them. Men are so very, very heartless. They know their power and use it.
LADY CAROLINE
[Takes coffee from Servant.] What stuff and nonsense all this about men is! The thing to do is to keep men in their proper place. ”

“ LADY CAROLINE
You believe good of every one, Jane. It is a great fault.
LADY STUTFIELD
Do you really, really think, Lady Caroline, that one should believe evil of every one?
LADY CAROLINE
I think it is much safer to do so, Lady Stutfield. Until, of course, people are found out to be good. But that requires a great deal of investigation, nowadays.
LADY STUTFIELD
But there is so much unkind scandal in modern life.
LADY CAROLINE
Lord Illingworth remarked to me last night at dinner that the basis of every scandal is an absolutely immoral certainty. ”

“ I should have thought Lady Caroline would have grown tired of conjugal anxiety by this time! Sir John is her fourth!
Lord Illingworth. So much marriage is certainly not becoming. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.
Mrs. Allonby. Twenty years of romance! Is there such a thing?
Lord Illingworth. Not in our day. Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman. ”

“ GERALD
Why, mother?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT
I thought you were quite happy here with me, Gerald. I didn't know you were so anxious to leave me.
GERALD
Mother, how can you talk like that? Of course I have been quite happy with you. But a man can't stay always with his mother. No chap does. I want to make myself a position, to do something. I thought you would have been proud to see me Lord Illingworth's secretary.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT
I do not think you would be suitable as a private secretary to Lord Illingworth. You have no qualifications. ”

“ GERALD
I don't understand you now.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT
Men don't understand what mothers are. I am no different from other women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And yet, to bear you I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless, wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food. ”

“ Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don’t think the frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it. More marriages are ruined nowadays by the common sense of the husband than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being? ”

“ LORD ILLINGWORTH
With the greatest pleasure. [To MRS. ALLONBY.] I'll be back in a moment. People's mothers always bore me to death. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
MRS. ALLONBY
No man does. That is his.
LORD ILLINGWORTH
What a delightful mood you are in tonight! [Turns round and goes across with GERALD to MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When he sees her, he starts back in wonder. Then slowly his eyes turn towards GERALD.]
GERALD
Mother, this is Lord Illingworth, who has offered to take me as his private secretary. [MRS. ARBUTHNOT bows coldly.] ”