Chiltern

“ Sir Robert Chiltern. A man of forty, but looking somewhat younger. Clean-shaven, with finely-cut features, dark-haired and dark-eyed. A personality of mark. Not popular—few personalities are. But intensely admired by [Pg 130] the few, and deeply respected of the many. The note of his manner is that of perfect distinction, with a slight touch of pride. One feels that he is conscious of the success he has made in life. A nervous temperament, with a tired look. The firmly-chiselled mouth and chin contrast strikingly with the romantic expression in the deep-set eyes. ”

“ Yet how
he rouses the House, moving it to cheers and laughter, and to the rapid
interchange of volleys of "Hear, hear" from opposite sides of the House,
which Chiltern says is the most exhilarating sound that can reach the
ear of a speaker in the House of Commons. Mr. Lowe sits down with the
same abruptness that marked his rising, and rather gets into his hat
than puts it on, pushing his head so far into its depths that there is
nothing of him left on view save what extends below the line of his
white eyebrows. ”

“ Nevertheless, Lord Chiltern did go down to Peterborough the next day by the hunting train, and rode his horse Bonebreaker so well in that famous run from Sutton springs to Gidding that after the run young Piles,—of the house of Piles, Sarsnet, and Gingham,—offered him three hundred pounds for the animal.
"He isn't worth above fifty," said Lord Chiltern. ”

“ I bought success at a great price. That is all.
LORD GORING. [Gravely.] Yes; you certainly paid a great price for it. But what first made you think of doing such a thing?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Baron Arnheim.
LORD GORING. Damned scoundrel!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. No; he was a man of a most subtle and refined intellect. A man of culture, charm, and distinction. One of the most intellectual men I ever met.
LORD GORING. Ah! I prefer a gentlemanly fool any day. There is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally I have a great admiration for stupidity. ”

“ Lady Chiltern, I have a certain amount of very good news to tell you. Mrs. Cheveley gave me up Robert’s letter last night, and I burned it. Robert is safe.
lady chiltern. [Sinking on the sofa.] Safe! Oh! I am so glad of that. What a good friend you are to him—to us!
lord goring. There is only one person now that could be said to be in any danger.
lady chiltern. Who is that?
lord goring. [Sitting down beside her.] Yourself.
lady chiltern. I? In danger? What do you mean?
lord goring. Danger is too great a word. ”

“ We needs must love the highest when we see it! [Kisses him and rises and goes out.]
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN walks up and down for a moment; then sits down and buries his face in his hands. The Servant enters and begins pulling out the lights. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN looks up.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!
[The Servant puts out the lights. The room becomes almost dark. The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love.] ”

“ LADY CHILTERN. A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude! Gertrude!
LADY CHILTERN. You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. ”

“ sir robert chiltern. What an appalling philosophy that sounds! To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence. But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.
mrs. cheveley. Oh, I’m neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.
sir robert chiltern. You prefer to be natural?
mrs. cheveley. Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up. ”

“ LADY CHILTERN. Apparently to try and lure Robert to uphold some fraudulent scheme in which she is interested. The Argentine Canal, in fact.
LORD GORING. She has mistaken her man, hasn't she?
LADY CHILTERN. She is incapable of understanding an upright nature like my husband's!
LORD GORING. Yes. I should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get Robert into her toils. It is extraordinary what astounding mistakes clever women make.
LADY CHILTERN. I don't call women of that kind clever. I call them stupid! ”

“ Sir Robert is very entertaining, is he not?
mrs. cheveley. Most entertaining! I have enjoyed my talk with him immensely.
lady markby. He has had a very interesting and brilliant career. And he has married a most admirable wife. Lady Chiltern is a woman of the very highest principles, I am glad to say. I am a little too old now, myself, to trouble about setting a good example, but I always admire people who do. And Lady Chiltern has a very ennobling effect on life, though her dinner-parties are rather dull sometimes. But one can’t have everything, can one? ”

“ How pretty you are looking!
MABEL CHILTERN. How pale you are looking, Gertrude! It is most becoming!
LADY CHILTERN. Good morning, Lord Goring!
LORD GORING. [Bowing.] Good morning, Lady Chiltern!
MABEL CHILTERN. [Aside to LORD GORING.] I shall be in the conservatory under the second palm tree on the left. ”

“ Oh! none, Robert.
sir robert chiltern. [Sadly.] And your ambition for me? You used to be ambitious for me.
lady chiltern. Oh, my ambition! I have none now, but that we two may love each other. It was your ambition that led you astray. Let us not talk about ambition.
[lord goring returns from the conservatory, looking very pleased with himself, and with an entirely new buttonhole that some one has made for him.]
sir robert chiltern. [Going towards him.] Arthur, I have to thank you for what you have done for me. I don’t know how I can repay you. [Shakes hands with him.] ”

“ The Times? Certainly not. I only read The Morning Post. All that one should know about modern life is where the Duchesses are; anything else is quite demoralising.
lord caversham. Do you mean to say you have not read The Times leading article on Robert Chiltern’s career?
lord goring. Good heavens! No. What does it say?
lord caversham. What should it say, sir? Everything complimentary, of course. Chiltern’s speech last night on this Argentine Canal scheme was one of the finest pieces of oratory ever delivered in the House since Canning. ”

“ And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more . . . becoming!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. A political life is a noble career!
MRS. CHEVELEY. Sometimes. And sometimes it is a clever game, Sir Robert. And sometimes it is a great nuisance. ”

“ PHIPPS. It was brought by hand just after your lordship went to the club.
LORD GORING. That will do. [Exit PHIPPS.] Lady Chiltern's handwriting on Lady Chiltern's pink notepaper. That is rather curious. I thought Robert was to write. Wonder what Lady Chiltern has got to say to me? [Sits at bureau and opens letter, and reads it.] 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.' [Puts down the letter with a puzzled look. Then takes it up, and reads it again slowly.] 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you.' So she has found out everything! Poor woman! Poor woman! ”

“ The English think that a cheque-book can solve every problem in life. Why, my dear Arthur, I have very much more money than you have, and quite as much as Robert Chiltern has got hold of. Money is not what I want. ”

“ It is the right thing in the Chiltern game for the leader to be everywhere; that is one of the features that has made of the Chiltern game the great moral training that it is. So Cheeny did his best to be ubiquitous, and played such a game as had not been played in Colonus within the memory of that generation—falling, rising, charging and being charged, stopping rushes, intercepting passes and spoiling shots. And, after each unsuccessful attack on the Chowdlerite goal, Mr. Trimble said calmly, “That settles it! Silly asses! They deserve to be beaten!” ”

“ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Let me pass, sir. You have lied enough upon your word of honour.
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN goes out. LORD GORING rushes to the door of the drawing-room, when MRS. CHEVELEY comes out, looking radiant and much amused.]
MRS. CHEVELEY. [With a mock curtsey] Good evening, Lord Goring!
LORD GORING. Mrs. Cheveley! Great heavens! . . . May I ask what you were doing in my drawing-room?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Merely listening. I have a perfect passion for listening through keyholes. One always hears such wonderful things through them. ”

“ The husband and wife are left alone. lady chiltern stands like some one in a dreadful dream. Then she turns round and looks at her husband. She looks at him with strange eyes, as though she were seeing him for the first time.]
lady chiltern. You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your life with fraud! You built up your career on dishonour! Oh, tell me it is not true! Lie to me! Lie to me! Tell me it is not true!
sir robert chiltern. What this woman said is quite true. But, Gertrude, listen to me. You don’t realise how I was tempted. Let me tell you the whole thing. [Goes towards her.] ”

“ They were both out the Monday and Tuesday in that week, and then again on the Thursday without anything special in the way of sport. Lord Chiltern, who had found Silverbridge to be a young man after his own heart, was anxious that he should come back to Harrington and bring Tregear with him. But to this Tregear would not assent, alleging that he should feel himself to be a burden both to Lord and Lady Chiltern. On the Friday Tregear did not go out, saying that he would avoid the expense, and on that day there was a good run. "It is always the way," said Silverbridge. ”

“ A lady does arrive, only she is not Lady Chiltern, but Mrs Cheveley, who has not announced her advent in any way. Surprised to hear that Lord Goring is expecting a lady, and while Phipps is lighting the candles in the drawing-room, she occupies her spare moments in running through the letters on the writing-table, and comes across Lady Chiltern's note. ”

“ LADY CHILTERN. To have kept it would have been the first stain on a career that has been stainless always. Robert must be above reproach. He is not like other men. He cannot afford to do what other men do. [She looks at LORD GORING, who remains silent.] Don't you agree with me? You are Robert's greatest friend. You are our greatest friend, Lord Goring. No one, except myself, knows Robert better than you do. ”

“ I hope Lord Chiltern recognises the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him." ”

“ Cheveley stole that letter from my rooms.
LADY CHILTERN. Well, what use is it to her? Why should she not have it?
LORD GORING. [Rising.] Lady Chiltern, I will be quite frank with you. Mrs. Cheveley puts a certain construction on that letter and proposes to send it to your husband.
LADY CHILTERN. But what construction could she put on it? . . . Oh! not that! not that! If I in - in trouble, and wanting your help, trusting you, propose to come to you . . . that you may advise me . . . assist me . . . Oh! are there women so horrible as that . . .? And she proposes to send it to my husband? ”

“ "I am sorry for that,—very sorry."
"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"
"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might have induced him to ride a little less forward." ”

“ I was over the scattered clumps of town about Ealing, the little Thames a thread of blue to the south, and the Chiltern Hills and the North Downs coming up like the rim of a basin, far away and faint with haze. Up I rushed. And at first I had not the faintest conception what this headlong rush upward could mean.
Every moment the circle of scenery beneath me grew wider and wider, and the details of town and field, of hill and valley, got more and more hazy and pale and indistinct, a luminous grey was mingled more and more with the blue of the hills and the green of the open meadows ”

“ The action is rapid, the interest of the story sustained to the very end, and the dialogue always to the point. Each of the principal characters concerned in the carrying out of the plot is a distinct individualised type. What each one says or does is entirely in keeping with his, or her, personality. And that personality is in each case a well-marked and skilfully drawn one. The four personæ who are engaged in conducting the intrigue of this comedy are Sir Robert Chiltern, Lady Chiltern (his wife) , Lord Goring, and Mrs Cheveley. ”

“ I never change.
mrs. cheveley [Elevating her eyebrows.] Then life has taught you nothing?
lady chiltern. It has taught me that a person who has once been guilty of a dishonest and dishonourable action may be guilty of it a second time, and should be shunned.
mrs. cheveley. Would you apply that rule to every one?
lady chiltern. Yes, to every one, without exception.
mrs. cheveley. Then I am sorry for you, Gertrude, very sorry for you. ”

“ Ah, how easily she had been persuaded to enter it! "We have the right to happiness," he had said, and she had looked into his eyes and believed him. What was this strange, elusive happiness, that she had so pantingly pursued and never overtaken? that essence pure and unalloyed with baser things? Ecstasy, perhaps, she had found—for was it delirium? Fear was the boon companion of these; or better, the pestilence that stalked behind them, ever ready to strike.
Then, as though some one had turned on a light—a sickening, yet penetrating blue light—she looked at Hugh Chiltern. ”