Oscar Wilde

“ ALGERNON.
Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?
JACK.
Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.
ALGERNON.
How immensely you must amuse them! [Goes over and takes sandwich.] By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?
JACK.
Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea?
ALGERNON.
Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen. ”

“ ALGERNON.
But I thought you said that . . . Miss Cardew was a little too much interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won’t she feel his loss a good deal?
JACK.
Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.
ALGERNON.
I would rather like to see Cecily.
JACK.
I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen.
ALGERNON.
Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen? ”

“ You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?
ALGERNON.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.
JACK.
Is that clever?
ALGERNON.
It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be.
JACK.
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. ”

“ Quite a well-kept garden this is, Miss Cardew.
CECILY.
So glad you like it, Miss Fairfax.
GWENDOLEN.
I had no idea there were any flowers in the country.
CECILY.
Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London.
GWENDOLEN.
Personally I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist in the country, if anybody who is anybody does. The country always bores me to death.
CECILY.
Ah! This is what the newspapers call agricultural depression, is it not? I believe the aristocracy are suffering very much from it just at present. ”

“ GWENDOLEN.
Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age. Ernest has a strong upright nature. He is the very soul of truth and honour. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception. But even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. ”

“ GWENDOLEN.
I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma. [They rise together.]
LADY BRACKNELL.
Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself . . . And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage. ”

“ You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
ALGERNON.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. ”

“ Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I?
CECILY.
Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don’t stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached ‘absolute perfection’. You can go on. I am quite ready for more.
ALGERNON.
[Somewhat taken aback.] Ahem! Ahem!
CECILY.
Oh, don’t cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. ”

“ ALGERNON.
Oh, I’m a little anxious about poor Bunbury, that is all.
JACK.
If you don’t take care, your friend Bunbury will get you into a serious scrape some day.
ALGERNON.
I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.
JACK.
Oh, that’s nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.
ALGERNON.
Nobody ever does.
[Jack looks indignantly at him, and leaves the room. Algernon lights a cigarette, reads his shirt-cuff, and smiles.] ”

“ JACK.
My own one, I have never loved any one in the world but you.
GWENDOLEN.
Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald does. All my girl-friends tell me so. What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! They are quite, quite, blue. I hope you will always look at me just like that, especially when there are other people present. [Enter Lady Bracknell.]
LADY BRACKNELL.
Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.
GWENDOLEN.
Mamma! [He tries to rise; she restrains him.] I must beg you to retire. This is no place for you. ”

“ I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her.
JACK.
Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don’t really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair . . . I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about your own aunt in that way before you.
ALGERNON.
My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. ”

“ For me you have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. [Jack looks at her in amazement.] We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you. ”

“ ALGERNON.
But how did we become engaged?
CECILY.
Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest. ”

“ JACK.
I wanted to be engaged to Gwendolen, that is all. I love her.
ALGERNON.
Well, I simply wanted to be engaged to Cecily. I adore her.
JACK.
There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew.
ALGERNON.
I don’t think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united.
JACK.
Well, that is no business of yours.
ALGERNON.
If it was my business, I wouldn’t talk about it. [Begins to eat muffins.] It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties. ”

“ Bunbury seems to suffer from curiously bad health.
ALGERNON.
Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.
LADY BRACKNELL.
Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. ”

“ I hope, Cecily, you are not inattentive.
CECILY.
Oh, I am afraid I am.
CHASUBLE.
That is strange. Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism’s pupil, I would hang upon her lips. [Miss Prism glares.] I spoke metaphorically.—My metaphor was drawn from bees. Ahem! Mr. Worthing, I suppose, has not returned from town yet?
MISS PRISM.
We do not expect him till Monday afternoon.
CHASUBLE.
Ah yes, he usually likes to spend his Sunday in London. He is not one of those whose sole aim is enjoyment, as, by all accounts, that unfortunate young man his brother seems to be. ”

“ Worthing, I had better ask you if Miss Cardew has any little fortune?
JACK.
Oh! about a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds. That is all. Goodbye, Lady Bracknell. So pleased to have seen you.
LADY BRACKNELL.
[Sitting down again.] A moment, Mr. Worthing. A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities, any of the qualities that last, and improve with time. We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces. [To Cecily.] ”

“ By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?
JACK.
[In a very patronising manner.] My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!
ALGERNON.
The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain. ”

“ GWENDOLEN.
Cecily Cardew? [Moving to her and shaking hands.] What a very sweet name! Something tells me that we are going to be great friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first impressions of people are never wrong. ”

“ I am Miss Cardew’s guardian, and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age. That consent I absolutely decline to give.
LADY BRACKNELL.
Upon what grounds may I ask? Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?
JACK.
It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful. [Algernon and Cecily look at him in indignant amazement.] ”

“ But the baby was not there! [Every one looks at Miss Prism.] Prism! Where is that baby? [A pause.]
MISS PRISM.
Lady Bracknell, I admit with shame that I do not know. I only wish I did. The plain facts of the case are these. On the morning of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory, I prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator. I had also with me a somewhat old, but capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my few unoccupied hours. ”

“ I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment’s notice. As a man sows so let him reap. You must put away your diary, Cecily. I really don’t see why you should keep a diary at all. ”

“ Ernest Worthing.
[Enter Jack.]
[Lane goes out.]
ALGERNON.
How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town?
JACK.
Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy!
ALGERNON.
[Stiffly.] I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock. Where have you been since last Thursday?
JACK.
[Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country.
ALGERNON.
What on earth do you do there?
JACK.
[Pulling off his gloves.] When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. ”

“ I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
JACK.
I haven’t asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night.
ALGERNON.
I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations. ”

“ CECILY.
They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.
GWENDOLEN.
[After a pause.] They don’t seem to notice us at all. Couldn’t you cough?
CECILY.
But I haven’t got a cough.
GWENDOLEN.
They’re looking at us. What effrontery!
CECILY.
They’re approaching. That’s very forward of them.
GWENDOLEN.
Let us preserve a dignified silence.
CECILY.
Certainly. It’s the only thing to do now. [Enter Jack followed by Algernon. They whistle some dreadful popular air from a British Opera.] ”

“ So I don’t think your guardian’s consent is, after all, a matter of any importance.
JACK.
Pray excuse me, Lady Bracknell, for interrupting you again, but it is only fair to tell you that according to the terms of her grandfather’s will Miss Cardew does not come legally of age till she is thirty-five.
LADY BRACKNELL.
That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. ”

“ JACK.
[Slowly and hesitatingly.] Gwendolen—Cecily—it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind. However, I will tell you quite frankly that I have no brother Ernest. I have no brother at all. I never had a brother in my life, and I certainly have not the smallest intention of ever having one in the future. ”