Oscar Wilde quote about decency from The Importance of Being Earnest - To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.
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To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.
 Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). copy citation

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Author Oscar Wilde
Source The Importance of Being Earnest
Topic decency France
Date 1895
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm

Context

“Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
jack. Yes. The Brighton line.
Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion—has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now—but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.” source

Meaning and analysis

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