Lord Illingworth

“ When I knew Lord Illingworth first as plain George Harford, he was simply a very brilliant young man about town, with not a penny of money except what poor dear Lady Cecilia gave him. She was quite devoted to him. Chiefly, I fancy, because he was on bad terms with his father. Oh, here is the dear Archdeacon. [To Servant.] It doesn’t matter.
[Enter Sir John and Doctor Daubeny. Sir John goes over to Lady Stutfield, Doctor Daubeny to Lady Hunstanton.]
The Archdeacon. Lord Illingworth has been most entertaining. I have never enjoyed myself more. [Sees Mrs. Arbuthnot.] Ah, Mrs. Arbuthnot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ LADY HUNSTANTON
But, my dear Gerald, at your age you shouldn't have any views of life. They are quite out of place. You must be guided by others in this matter. 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. ”

“ Lord Illingworth. Your mother is a thoroughly good woman. But good women have such limited views of life, their horizon is so small, their interests are so petty, aren’t they?
Gerald. They are awfully interested, certainly, in things we don’t care much about.
Lord Illingworth. I suppose your mother is very religious, and that sort of thing.
Gerald. Oh, yes, she’s always going to church.
Lord Illingworth. Ah! she is not modern, and to be modern is the only thing worth being nowadays. You want to be modern, don’t you, Gerald? You want to know life as it really is. ”

“ 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
According to our ridiculous English laws, I can't legitimise Gerald. But I can leave him my property. Illingworth is entailed, of course, but it is a tedious barrack of a place. He can have Ashby, which is much prettier, Harborough, which has the best shooting in the north of England, and the house in St. James Square. What more can a gentleman desire in this world?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT
Nothing more, I am quite sure.
LORD ILLINGWORTH
As for a title, a title is really rather a nuisance in these democratic days. As George Harford I had everything I wanted. ”

“ 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, I want you so much to know my mother.
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 to-night! [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. ”

“ Is she such a mystery?
Lord Illingworth. She is more than a mystery—she is a mood.
Mrs. Allonby. Moods don’t last.
Lord Illingworth. It is their chief charm. ”

“ Lord Illingworth. Quite serious, Mr. Kelvil. [To Mrs. Allonby.] Vulgar habit that is people have nowadays of asking one, after one has given them an idea, whether one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except passion. The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. The only serious form of intellect I know is the British intellect. And on the British intellect the illiterates play the drum.
Lady Hunstanton. What are you saying, Lord Illingworth, about the drum?
Lord Illingworth. ”

“ I am sure, Lord Illingworth, you don’t think that uneducated people should be allowed to have votes?
Lord Illingworth. I think they are the only people who should. ”

“ Arbuthnot. We will not tell you, and if you find us we will not know you. You seem surprised. What welcome would you get from the girl whose lips you tried to soil, from the boy whose life you have shamed, from the mother whose dishonour comes from you?
Lord Illingworth. You have grown hard, Rachel.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. I was too weak once. It is well for me that I have changed.
Lord Illingworth. I was very young at the time. We men know life too early.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. And we women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women. [A pause.]
Lord Illingworth. Rachel, I want my son. ”

“ Gerald. Then I have my ambition left, at any rate. That is something—I am glad I have that! You have always tried to crush my ambition, mother—haven’t you? You have told me that the world is a wicked place, that success is not worth having, that society is shallow, and all that sort of thing—well, I don’t believe it, mother. I think the world must be delightful. I think society must be exquisite. I think success is a thing worth having. You have been wrong in all that you taught me, mother, quite wrong. Lord Illingworth is a successful man. He is a fashionable man. ”

“ He it is whom Lord Illingworth shocks so profoundly, first by his assertion that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future, and finally by the flippant remark that the secret of life is to be always on the lookout for temptations, which are becoming so exceedingly scarce that he sometimes passes a whole day without coming across one. ”

“ My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important, Lord Illingworth would tell us. ”

“ I don’t know how to talk.
Lord Illingworth. Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact. ”

“ Well, you couldn’t come to a more charming place than this, Miss Worsley, though the house is excessively damp, quite unpardonably damp, and dear Lady Hunstanton is sometimes a little lax about the people she asks down here. [To Sir John.] Jane mixes too much. Lord Illingworth, of course, is a man of high distinction. It is a privilege to meet him. And that member of Parliament, Mr. Kettle—
Sir John. Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.
Lady Caroline. He must be quite respectable. One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays. ”

“ It’s been an amusing experience to have met amongst people of one’s own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one’s mistress, and one’s—
[Mrs. Arbuthnot snatches up glove and strikes Lord Illingworth across the face with it. Lord Illingworth starts. He is dazed by the insult of his punishment. Then he controls himself, and goes to window and looks out at his son. Sighs and leaves the room.]
Mrs. Arbuthnot. [Falls sobbing on the sofa.] He would have said it. He would have said it.
[Enter Gerald and Hester from the garden.]
Gerald. Well, dear mother. You never came out after all. ”

“ Saying which, he produced the Black Pearl of Agni.
To his unbounded joy and immense surprise Lord Illingworth received the missing stone from London during the course of the next day.
The Indians had been remanded for a week, pending further inquiries, and as they had obviously not stolen the jewel after all, Lord Illingworth declined to prosecute, and they were released from custody. An unknown friend interested himself in the natives. One of them, a Baboo, was sent back to Bombay by an early steamer. ”

“ But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers?
Lord Illingworth. I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. ”

“ What do you think she’d do if I kissed her?
Mrs. Allonby. Either marry you, or strike you across the face with her glove. What would you do if she struck you across the face with her glove?
Lord Illingworth. Fall in love with her, probably. ”

“ Lord Illingworth remarked to me last night at dinner that the basis of every scandal is an absolutely immoral certainty. ”

“ Illingworth’s answer. “Your question is this: Could a man drive a car up to a certain place and then short circuit the magneto armature so that the car couldn’t be started again? The answer is, Yes, but not without leaving marks.”
“But that’s just my puzzle,” French returned. “That’s exactly what seems to have been done.”
“Well,” Mr. Illingworth answered with a smile, “you may take it from me that it wasn’t.”
“Then in the case that I have described, the breakdown must have been a pure accident?” ”

“ Illingworth was examined by the second committee of the House of Commons respecting the record commissioners on 2 March 1836, and gave most interesting evidence. Before his death he became blind and fell into poverty. A subscription was made for him at the Incorporated Law Society in Chancery Lane. He died at 13 Brooksby Street, South Islington, on 21 Feb. 1845 (Somerset House Register) . His peculiar temper hindered his advancement. As examples of his unrivalled familiarity with old law and records, it may be mentioned that in the case of Roe v. ”

“ Promotion came for the asking; wealth by marriage and bequest. Influence, social and political, had followed, and a title. Succeeding generations had added to the score. Two descendants of the sepoy major had attained Cabinet rank, and the present peer had won the Derby. The [40] Luck of the Illingworths had become proverbial.
"SHE . . . HAD SHOWN HIM THE SECRET OF ITS HIDING-PLACE."
(p. 40.)
The jewel was kept at Knowlesworth. Travers knew the place well. He had spent a fortnight there, and there he had made love to Mary Illingworth. She had shown him the Pearl ”

“ Ratman peered through the gloom at the speaker in surprise. “Hullo!” said he, “that’s a new tune for you. Now look here; I suppose you’ve not forgotten our talk yesterday?”
“Well?”
“You’ve two things to do; you’ve to recognise me as Roger Ingleton when the time comes. There’ll be proofs and witnesses. They must satisfy you, mind. Make no mistake of that. Then I must have Rosalind. I love her. On the day I’m your son-in-law you shall have back every bill I hold against you. Now, is it a bargain? It’s a cheap one for you, I can tell you.”
The blood rose to Captain Oliphant’s brow. ”

“ The fortunes of war brought Ingelram, lord of Coucy, and son of Ingelram, William's brother, as hostage for John, king of France, to the court of Edward. There he gained by his handsome person and knightly grace the favour of the king, who granted him the lands of Westmorland which had belonged to his great-grandmother Christiana, created him Earl of Bedford, and gave him in 1365 his daughter Isabella in marriage. Ingelram for some time satisfied his martial instincts by fighting in the wars of Italy and Alsace ”

“ Hollingworth is a man of the world."
"There is no need for us to discuss that point. Your remark does you no credit, Inglefield."
"It was founded, sir," said Mark Inglefield, in a tone of respectful deference, "upon a knowledge of Mr. Hollingworth's character."
"Mr. Hollingworth would not thank you for that."
"Possibly not. Still I speak as a man of the world, as you know me to be, and as you are yourself. A man's experience must count in such matters. Is your story ended, sir?" ”

“ But the blue eyes of Michael Moon brightened and hardened with a light that Inglewood did not understand. Many centuries, and many villages and valleys, would have been happier if Inglewood or Inglewood's countrymen had ever understood that light, or guessed at the first blink that it was the battle star of Ireland.
"Nothing can ever alter it; it's in the wheels of the universe," went on Inglewood, in a low voice: "some men are weak and some strong, and the only thing we can do is to know that we are weak. ”

“ You are at liberty to keep or destroy this new will as you choose. Nor, if you keep it, are you bound to do anything towards finding your lost brother. But should you desire to make inquiries, I am able to give you this feeble clue—that, after leaving home, he went to the bad in London in company with a companion named Fastnet, but where they lived I know not. Also, that the rumour of his death came to me from India. I can say no more, only that I am his and your loving father,—
“Roger Ingleton.” ”