by Oscar Wilde
GERALD (laughing). I might be able to learn how to tie a tie, Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. 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.
GERALD. But it is very difficult to get into society, isn’t it?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people – that is all!
GERALD. I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy. Society is a necessary thing. No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and women rule society. If you have not got women on your side you are quite over. You might just as well be a barrister or a stockbroker, or a journalist at once.
GERALD. It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You should never try to understand them. Women are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means – which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do – look at her, don’t listen to her.
GERALD. But women are awfully clever, aren’t they?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. One should always tell them so. But, to the philosopher, my dear Gerald, women represent the triumph of matter over mind – just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
GERALD. How then can women have so much power as you say they have?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.
GERALD. But haven’t women got a refining influence?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Nothing refines but the intellect.
GERALD. Still, there are many different kinds of women, aren’t there?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Only two kinds in society: the plain and the coloured.
GERALD. But there are good women in society, aren’t there?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Far too many.
GERALD. But do you think women shouldn’t be good?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. One should never tell them so, they’d all become good at once. Women are a fascinatingly wilful sex. Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.
GERALD. You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
GERALD. But don’t you think one can be happy when one is married?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married.
GERALD. But if one is in love?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
GERALD. Love is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. But a really grand passion is comparatively rare nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes in a country, and the only possible explanation of us Harfords.
GERALD. Harfords, Lord Illingworth?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. That is my family name. You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done. And now, Gerald, you are going into a perfectly new life with me, and I want you to know how to live.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT appears on terrace behind.
For the world has been made by fools that wise men should live in it!
Enter L. C. LADY HUNSTANTON and DOCTOR DAUBENY.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! here you are, dear Lord Illingworth. Well, I suppose you have been telling our young friend, Gerald, what his new duties are to be, and giving him a great deal of good advice over a pleasant cigarette.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I have been giving him the best of advice, Lady Hunstanton, and the best of cigarettes.
LADY HUNSTANTON. I am so sorry I was not here to listen to you, but I suppose I am too old now to learn. Except from you, dear Archdeacon, when you are in your nice pulpit. But then I always know what you are going to say, so I don’t feel alarmed. (Sees MRS. ARBUTHNOT.) Ah! dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, do come and join us. Come, dear.
Enter MRS. ARBUTHNOT.
Gerald has been having such a long talk with Lord Illingworth; I am sure you must feel very much flattered at the pleasant way in which everything has turned out for him. Let us sit down. (They sit down.) And how is your beautiful embroidery going on?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn’t she?
THE ARCHDEACON. She was very deft with her needle once, quite a Dorcas. But the gout has crippled her fingers a good deal. She has not touched the tambour frame for nine or ten years. But she has many other amusements. She is very much interested in her own health.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! that is always a nice distraction, is it not? Now, what are you talking about, Lord Illingworth? Do tell us.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I was on the point of explaining to Gerald that the world has always laughed at its own tragedies, that being the only way in which it has been able to bear them. And that, consequently, whatever the world has treated seriously belongs to the comedy side of things.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Now I am quite out of my depth. I usually am when Lord Illingworth says anything. And the Humane Society is most careless. They never rescue me. I am left to sink. I have a dim idea, dear Lord Illingworth, that you are always on the side of the sinners, and I know I always try to be on the side of the saints, but that is as far as I get. And after all, it may be merely the fancy of a drowning person.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! that quite does for me. I haven’t a word to say. You and I, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, are behind the age. We can’t follow Lord Illingworth. Too much care was taken with our education, I am afraid. To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one out from so much.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I should be sorry to follow Lord Illingworth in any of his opinions.
LADY HUNSTANTON. You are quite right, dear.
GERALD shrugs his shoulders and looks irritably over at his mother. Enter LADY CAROLINE.
LADY CAROLINE. Jane, have you seen John anywhere?
LADY HUNSTANTON. You needn’t be anxious about him, dear. He is with Lady Stutfield; I saw them some time ago, in the Yellow Drawing-room. They seem quite happy together. You are not going, Caroline? Pray sit down.
LADY CAROLINE. I think I had better look after John.
Exit LADY CAROLINE.
LADY HUNSTANTON. It doesn’t do to pay men so much attention. And Caroline has really nothing to be anxious about. Lady Stutfield is very sympathetic. She is just as sympathetic about one thing as she is about another. A beautiful nature.
Enter SIR JOHN and MRS. ALLONBY.
Ah! here is Sir John! And with Mrs. Allonby too! I suppose it was Mrs. Allonby I saw him with. Sir John, Caroline has been looking everywhere for you.
MRS. ALLONBY. We have been waiting for her in the Music-room, dear Lady Hunstanton.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! the Music-room, of course. I thought it was the Yellow Drawing-room, my memory is getting so defective. (To the ARCHDEACON.) Mrs. Daubeny has a wonderful memory, hasn’t she?
THE ARCHDEACON. She used to be quite remarkable for her memory, but since her last attack she recalls chiefly the events of her early childhood. But she finds great pleasure in such retrospections, great pleasure.
E
nter LADY STUTFIELD and MR. KELVIL.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! dear Lady Stutfield! and what has Mr. Kelvil been talking to you about?
LADY STUTFIELD. About Bimetallism, as well as I remember.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Bimetallism! Is that quite a nice subject? However, I know people discuss everything very freely nowadays. What did Sir John talk to you about, dear Mrs. Allonby?
MRS. ALLONBY. About Patagonia.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Really? What a remote topic! But very improving, I have no doubt.
MRS. ALLONBY. He has been most interesting on the subject of Patagonia. Savages seem to have quite the same views as cultured people on almost all subjects. They are excessively advanced.
LADY HUNSTANTON. What do they do?
MRS. ALLONBY. Apparently everything.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Well, it is very gratifying. dear Archdeacon, is it not, to find that Human Nature is permanently one. – On the whole, the world is the same world, is it not?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. The world is simply divided into two classes – those who believe the incredible, like the public – and those who do the improbable –
MRS. ALLONBY. Like yourself?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Yes; I am always astonishing myself. It is the only thing that makes life worth living.
LADY STUTFIELD. And what have you been doing lately that astonishes you?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I have been discovering all kinds of beautiful qualities in my own nature.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah! don’t become quite perfect all at once. Do it gradually!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I don’t intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I shan’t. It would be most inconvenient. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us for our defects. It we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
MRS. ALLONBY. It is premature to ask us to forgive analysis. We forgive adoration; that is quite as much as should be expected from us.
Enter LORD ALFRED. He joins LADY STUTFIELD.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! we women should forgive everything, shouldn’t we, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot? I am sure you agree with me in that.
Mrs. ARBUTHNOT. I do not, Lady Hunstanton. I think there are many things women should never forgive.
LADY HUNSTANTON. What sort of things?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. The ruin of another woman’s life. (Moves slowly away to back of stage.)
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.
MRS. ALLONBY. The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.
LADY STUTFIELD. The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
KELVIL. The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady stutfield.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. There is no secret of life. Life’s aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.
LADY HUNSTANTON (shakes her fan at him). I don’t know how it is, Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said today seems to me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to you.
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.
LADY HUNSTANTON. I hope I shall remember that. It sounds an admirable maxim. But I’m beginning to forget everything. It’s a great misfortune.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.
LADY HUNSTANTON. How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s important virtue. You have the most comforting view of life.
Enter FARQUHAR.
FARQUHAR. Doctor Daubeny’s carriage!
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear Archdeacon! It is only half-past ten.
THE ARCHDEACON (rising). I am afraid I must go, Lady Hunstanton. Tuesday is always one of Mrs. Daubeny’s bad nights.
LADY HUNSTANTON (rising). Well, I won’t keep you from her. (Goes with him towards door.) I have told Farquhar to put a brace of partridge into the carriage. Mrs. Daubeny may fancy them.
THE ARCHDEACON. It is very kind of you, but Mrs. Daubeny never touches solids now. Lives entirely on jellies. But she is wonderfully cheerful, wonderfully cheerful. She has nothing to complain of.
Exit With LADY HUNSTANTON.
MRS. ALLONBY (goes over to LORD ILLINGWORTH). There is a beautiful moon to-night.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Let us go and look at it. To look at anything that is inconstant is charming nowadays.
MRS. ALLONBY. You have your looking-glass.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is unkind. It merely shows me my wrinkles.
MRS. ALLONBY. Mine is better behaved. It never tells me the truth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Then it is in love with you.
Exeunt SIR JOHN, LADY STUTFIELD, MR. KELVIL and LORD ALFRED.
GERALD (to LORD ILLINGWORTH). May I Come too?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Do, my dear boy. (Moves towards door With MRS. ALLONBY and GERALD.)
LADY CAROLINE enters, looks rapidly round and goes out in opposite direction to that taken by SIR JOHN and LADY STUTFIELD.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Gerald!
GERALD. What, mother?
Exit LORD ILLINGWORTH with MRS. ALLONBY.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It is getting late. Let us go home.
GERALD. My dear mother. Do let us wait a little longer. Lord Illingworth is so delightful, and, by the way, mother, I have a great surprise for you. We are starting for India at the end of this month.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Let us go home.
GERALD. If you really want to, of course, mother, but I must bid good-bye to Lord Illingworth first. I’ll be back in five minutes. (Exit.)
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Let him leave me if he chooses, but not with him – not with him! I couldn’t bear it.(Walks up and down.)
Enter HESTER.
HESTER. What a lovely night it is, Mrs. Arbuthnot.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Is it?
HESTER. Mrs. Arbuthnot, I wish you would let us be friends. You are so different from the other women here. When you came into the Drawing-room this evening, somehow you brought with you a sense of what is good and pure in life. I had been foolish. There are things that are right to say, but that may be said at the wrong time and to the wrong people.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I heard what you said. I agree with it, Miss Worsley.
HESTER. I didn’t know you had heard it. But I knew you would agree with me. A woman who has sinned should be punished, shouldn’t she?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.
HESTER. She shouldn’t be allowed to come into the society of good men and women?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. She should not.
HESTER. And the man should be punished in the same way?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. In the same way. And the children, if there are children, in the same way also?
HESTER. Yes, it is right that the sins of the parents should be visited on the children. It is a just law. It is God’s law.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It is one of God’s terrible laws. (Moves away to fireplace.)
HESTER. You are distressed about your son leaving you, Mrs
. Arbuthnot?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.
HESTER. Do you like him going away with Lord Illingworth? Of course there is position, no doubt, and money, but position and money are not everything, are they?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. They are nothing; they bring misery.
HESTER. Then why do you let your son go with him?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. He wishes it himself.
HESTER. But if you asked him he would stay, would he not?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. He has set his heart on going.
HESTER. He couldn’t refuse you anything. He loves you too much. Ask him to stay. Let me send him to you. He is on the terrace at this moment with Lord Illingworth. I heard them laughing together as I passed through the Music-room.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Don’t trouble, Miss Worsley, I can wait. It is of no consequence.
HESTER. No, I’ll tell him you want him. Do – do ask him to stay.
Exit HESTER.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. He won’t come – I know he won’t come.
Enter LADY CAROLINE. She looks round anxiously. Enter GERALD.
LADY CAROLINE. Mr. Arbuthnot, may I ask you is Sir John anywhere on the terrace?
GERALD. No, Lady Caroline, he is not on the terrace.
LADY CAROLINE. It is very curious. It is time for him to retire.
Exit LADY CAROLINE.
GERALD. Dear mother, I am afraid I kept you waiting. I forgot all about it. I am so happy to-night, mother; I have never been so happy.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. At the prospect of going away?
GERALD. Don’t put it like that, mother. Of course I am sorry to leave you. 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 ambitious; 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. An hour and a half ago in the Drawing-room you agreed to the whole thing; now you turn round and make objections, and try to force me to give up my one chance in life. Yes, my one chance. You don’t suppose that men like Lord Illingworth are to be found every day, do you, mother? It is very strange that when I have had such a wonderful piece of good luck, the one person to put difficulties in my way should be my own mother. Besides, you know, mother, I love Hester Worsley. Who could help loving her? I love her more than I ever have told you, far more. And if I had a position, if I had prospects, I could –I could ask her to. … Don’t you understand now, mother, what it means to me to be Lord Illingworth’s secretary? To start like that is to find a career ready for one –before one – waiting for one. If I were Lord Illingworth’s secretary I could ask Hester to be my wife. As a wretched bank clerk with a hundred a year it would be an impertinence.