back leading on to terrace.
[Lord Illingworth and Gerald, R. C. Lord Illingworthlolling on a sofa. Gerald in a chair.]
LORD ILL. Thoroughly sensible woman, your mother, Gerald. I knew
she would come round in the end.
GER. 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 ILL. 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.
GER. But I am so ignorant of the world, Lord Illingworth. LORD ILL. Don’t be afraid, Gerald. Remember that you’ve got on your
side the most wonderful thing in the world- youth! There is
nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The
old are in Life’s lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life.
Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one is born a king,
and most people die in exile, like most kings. To win back my
youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn’t do- except take
exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.
GER. But you don’t call yourself old, Lord Illingworth?
LORD ILL. I am old enough to be your father, Gerald.
GER. I don’t remember my father; he died years ago.
LORD ILL. So Lady Hunstanton told me.
GER. It is very curious, my mother never talks to me about my
father. I sometimes think she must have married beneath her.
LORD ILL. [Winces slightly.] Really? [Goes over and puts his hand
on Gerald’s shoulder.] You have missed not having a father, I
suppose, Gerald?
GER. Oh, no; my mother has been so good to me. No one ever had such
a mother as I have had.
LORD ILL. I am quite sure of that. Still I should imagine that most
mothers don’t quite understand their sons. Don’t realise, I
mean, that a son has ambitions, a desire to see life, to make
himself a name. After all, Gerald, you couldn’t be expected to
pass all your life in such a hole as Wrockley, could you?
GER. Oh, no! It would be dreadful!
LORD ILL. A mother’s love is very touching, of course, but it is
often curiously selfish. I mean, there is a good deal of
selfishness in it.
GER. [SLOWLY.] I suppose there is.
LORD ILL. 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?
GER. They are awfully interested, certainly, in things we don’t
care much about.
LORD ILL. I suppose your mother is very religious, and that sort of
thing.
GER. Oh, yes, she’s always going to church.
LORD ILL. Ah! she is not modern, and to be modern is the only thing
worth being now-a-days. You want to be modern, don’t you,
Gerald? You want to know life as it really is. Not to be put off
with any old-fashioned theories about life. Well, what you have
to do at present is simply to fit yourself for the best society.
A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the
world. The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who
are going to rule.
GER. I should like to wear nice things awfully, but I have always
been told that a man should not think too much about his
clothes.
LORD ILL. People now-a-days are so absolutely superficial that they
don’t understand the philosophy of the superficial. By the way,
Gerald, you should learn how to tie your tie better. Sentiment
is all very well for the button-hole. But the essential thing
for a necktie is style. A well-tied tie is the first serious
step in life.
GER. [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 ILL. 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.
GER. But it is very difficult to get into society, isn’t it?
LORD ILL. To get into the best society, now-a-days, one has either
to feed people, amuse people, or shock people- that is all.
GER. I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!
LORD ILL. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is
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 as well be a barrister, or a
stockbroker, or a journalist at once.
GER. It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?
LORD ILL. 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.
GER. But women are awfully clever, aren’t they?
LORD ILL. 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.
GER. How then can women have so much power as you say they have?
LORD ILL. 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.
GER. But haven’t women got a refining influence?
LORD ILL. Nothing refines but the intellect.
GER. Still, there are many different kinds of women, aren’t there?
LORD ILL. Only two kinds in society: the plain and the coloured.
GER. But there are good women in society, aren’t there?
LORD ILL. Far too many.
GER. But do you think women shouldn’t be good?
LORD ILL. 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.
GER. You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?
LORD ILL. Men marry because they are tired; women because they are
curious. Both are disappointed.
GER. But don’t you think one can be happy when one is married?
LORD ILL. Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my
dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married.
GER. But if one is in love?
LORD ILL. One should always be in love. That is the reason one
should never marry.
GER. Love is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?
LORD ILL. 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 grande passion is comparatively rare
now-a-days. 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.
GER. Harfords, Lord Illingworth?
LORD ILL. 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 now 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 Dr. Daubeny.]
LADY HUN. 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 ILL. I have been giving him the best of advice, Lady
Hunstanton, and the best of cigarettes.
LADY HUN. 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. ARB. I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.
LADY HUN. Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn’t she?
THE ARCHD. 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 HUN. Ah! that is always a nice distraction, is it not? Now,
what are you talking about, Lord Illingworth? Do tell us.
LORD ILL. 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 HUN. 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
