Oscar Wilde

“ LORD WINDERMERE. No; but because she knows that you are a good woman - and that if she comes here once she will have a chance of a happier, a surer life than she has had. She will make no further effort to know you. Won’t you help a woman who is trying to get back?
LADY WINDERMERE. No! If a woman really repents, she never wishes to return to the society that has made or seen her ruin. ”

“ LADY WINDERMERE. Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening.
LORD DARLINGTON. [Smiling.] Ah, nowadays we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments.
They’re the only things we can pay.
LADY WINDERMERE. [Shaking her head.] No, I am talking very seriously. You mustn’t laugh, I am quite serious. I don’t like compliments, and I don’t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn’t mean. ”

“ DUCHESS OF BERWICK. [On sofa L.] Of course it’s going to be select. But we know that, dear Margaret, about your house. It is really one of the few houses in London where I can take Agatha, and where I feel perfectly secure about dear Berwick. I don’t know what society is coming to. The most dreadful people seem to go everywhere. They certainly come to my parties - the men get quite furious if one doesn’t ask them.
Really, some one should make a stand against it.
LADY WINDERMERE. I will, Duchess. I will have no one in my house about whom there is any scandal. ”

“ LADY WINDERMERE. Because the husband is vile - should the wife be vile also?
LORD DARLINGTON. Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE. It is a terrible thing, Lord Darlington.
LORD DARLINGTON. Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, can’t help belonging to them. ”

“ Good-bye, once more; come, Agatha.
[Exeunt DUCHESS and LADY AGATHA C.]
LADY WINDERMERE. How horrible! I understand now what Lord Darlington meant by the imaginary instance of the couple not two years married. Oh! it can’t be true - she spoke of enormous sums of money paid to this woman. I know where Arthur keeps his bank book - in one of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I will find out. [Opens drawer.] No, it is some hideous mistake. [Rises and goes C.] Some silly scandal! He loves me! He loves me! But why should I not look? I am his wife, I have a right to look! ”

“ DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Don’t you really know? I assure you we’re all so distressed about it. Only last night at dear Lady Jansen’s every one was saying how extraordinary it was that, of all men in London, Windermere should behave in such a way.
LADY WINDERMERE. My husband - what has he got to do with any woman of that kind?
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Ah, what indeed, dear? That is the point. He goes to see her continually, and stops for hours at a time, and while he is there she is not at home to any one. ”

“ But I really am so sorry for you, Margaret
LADY WINDERMERE. [Smiling.] Why, Duchess?
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Oh, on account of that horrid woman. She dresses so well, too, which makes it much worse, sets such a dreadful example. Augustus - you know my disreputable brother - such a trial to us all - well, Augustus is completely infatuated about her. It is quite scandalous, for she is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit. ”

“ Misfortunes one can endure - they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults - ah! - there is the sting of life. ”

“ But what I do mind is that you who have loved me, you who have taught me to love you, should pass from the love that is given to the love that is bought. Oh, it’s horrible! [Sits on sofa.] And it is I who feel degraded! you don’t feel anything. ”

“ They can’t help it - and although they never talk scandal, they - well, of course - they remark on it to every one. And the worst of it all is that I have been told that this woman has got a great deal of money out of somebody, for it seems that she came to London six months ago without anything at all to speak of, and now she has this charming house in Mayfair, drives her ponies in the Park every afternoon and all - well, all - since she has known poor dear Windermere. ”